Farmers Digital Solutions 1-866-668-5565 • www.todaypublicationsfd.net JUNE 2025 HAY & FORAGE Edition 20 Each month, I like to share what’s been on my mind. Right now, it’s our on-farm testing program—and how our early-season tests are progressing. In March, I wrote about our plans and best practices for the season ahead. Now that we’re well into the first phase of testing, I’ve been reflecting on what’s working and where we can improve. We conduct a lot of side-by-side comparisons on our farm, especially focused on crop nutrition and biological products. These tests help us validate new inputs and determine whether they’re truly beneficial for our specific farming practices and land. What works on a neighbor’s field doesn’t always work on ours, so learning through our own data is critical. This spring, we added a liquid in-furrow system to our planter to trial a variety of in-furrow treatments—mostly biologicals or additives aimed at supporting the soil’s microbial life. I enjoy building systems so I set this one up myself. The planter features a 12-section control system on the 24-rows, along with an electronic flow monitoring system to ensure each row stays unclogged. But despite the solid equipment, one thing has me second-guessing a few of our tests: the mixing process. I didn’t use our Mixmate system this time around and I really missed it. Accurate mixing is the foundation for effective testing, and I have less confidence in some of our trials because I’m not sure how precise our application mixes were. Reading tank levels just doesn’t compare to what I’m used to with automated metering and recordkeeping. Our flow monitoring worked well, but without accurate input data and calibration, the application rates may still be off. This has sparked some serious discussions about improving our tendering system for next year. Adding a liquid system to the planter introduces complexity that can slow down planting if the support systems aren’t up to par. That’s one of the reasons why we developed Mixmate in the first place—to solve the real-world problems we were seeing on our own farm: the need for speed, accurate measurement, and trustworthy records. My goal with testing is always to remove as many variables as possible, so the results can stand on their own. Right now, I’m not fully confident in a few of our trials—and that’s frustrating. But it’s also motivating. I can already see how much better we can make this system next.
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