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| I'd rather use the term skeptical, than negative. And, it's because I've seen examples where people have been swindled out of hard earned money. Some intentionally, some inadvertent. Coron, Ortho starter, JumpStart, Avail, SS's Nutri-whatever are pretty good examples of scams that I can think of. Coron and ortho would be bordering on the inadvertent scam side. The others are a joke. When I worked in the T&O side of our business, the amount of Pixie dust concoctions was almost absurd. Broken down to the basic organic chemistry level reveals what most of it really was. Most of it was plain old N,P,K. There are really only about 5, arguably 6 plant available forms of macro's that the plant can handle.
My job affords me the opportunity to see a lot of different operations with different cultural practices, some validated by yield monitors. I also farm and have a yield monitor. I personally scout a lot of ground. We do a lot of side by sides. I can't say I've ever seen anything that was glaring and stuck out over time and said to me "this is the ticket." That's makes me wonder what the answer really is. Maybe our soils are too variable to give anything a fair shake. I sure would love the opportunity to play with some good old Midwestern black dirt. I think it basically boils down to, get your soil house in order (pH, base saturations, O.M., and decent fertility), pick good varieties, plant it right, keep the weeds, bugs and disease out, AND hope it rains and that's it - good crops.
I loaned my tractor & planter to a customer to set up a replicated trial of 30" versus twin rows once. The planter came back with half a load of starter. I don't use starter, but figured what the heck I'll do some starter trials. Visually, I saw a difference early, but at harvest there was no difference in yield. Also, the 30" corn yielded an average of 7 bushels better and won in every replication. I suspect it was because my planter spaced the seed better than the GP. No reason not to try new stuff, just be cautious (skeptical).
Edited by Jon S 2/17/2008 07:24
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Foo Foo/ Fairy Dust Products...
