Ken Ferrie
Agronomist Ken Ferrie provides agronomic insights, crop management tips, and practical advice for farmers to improve crop yields.
Soil moisture, seed chilling risks, and emergence forecasts can help you decide whether to run hard or park the planter.
Ken Ferrie uses a green-yellow-red “signal light” system to help farmers evaluate their planting decisions in the week ahead.
Ken Ferrie offers practical steps to salvage your yield potential if you’ve been affected by heavy rains and seed quality issues.
From Mehlich-3 to Olsen P, the extractant method your lab uses can help you interpret the data and manage inputs for more ROI.
Ken Ferrie warns that anhydrous ammonia won’t help young plants fight the carbon penalty this spring. He details how to bridge the nitrogen gap and protect your yield potential.
Before you leap, check out these essential management steps from Missouri farmer Todd Gibson and Farm Journal Field Agronomist Ken Ferrie to help you mitigate risks and protect ROI.
Weather is unpredictable, but a solid plan ensures you’re prepared for whatever the planting season brings.
Prioritize timing and placement to ensure young corn plants have access to enough N to withstand any disruption from microbial immobilization.
How you manage the mix in cornfields can determine whether the nitrogen feeds your crop or disappears into thin air.
Ken Ferrie explains how to prioritize planter attachments, why digging cross-sections is essential for ground-truthing planter performance, and the hidden risks of excessive closing wheel downforce.
A South Dakota farmer plans to use either a high-speed disk or a VT super coulter to ready the seedbed in fields this spring. He asks for help to know which tool to select for the job.
Ken Ferrie gives some practical tips on how you can rely more on facts and less on your gut to reduce management mistakes and achieve better cropping outcomes.
Planning for next season? Review the expert insights and recommendations from farmers and field agronomists on how to reduce costs and strategically reallocate resources.
Several years of low commodity prices, high input costs and thin margins have taken a toll on soil stewardship in some parts of the country. As a result, farmers need to use caution and do their homework before renting ground that’s coming available in their area for 2026.
Farmers wanting to hang onto the soil moisture in their fields are struggling to address compaction and ruts where there has been little to no recent rainfall. Anhydrous ammonia applications are also difficult to get sealed in fields where moisture is minimal.
The new technology is being evaluated in Farm Journal Test Plots this fall and catching a lot of farmer interest in the process. Check out our brief video showing the system at work in a central Illinois cornfield.
It’s a head-scratcher situation: some Illinois farmers are reporting moisture levels in their corn are dropping only one point per week.
Use one or more of these tips to reduce expenses, reallocate resources and build a fertility program that works well for your farm and gives you some peace of mind in the process.
The Midwest crop is being pushed into black layer (R6) prematurely in some areas in ways that are easy to confuse with normal drydown factors.
The disease is causing turmoil for farmers who have a large crop in the making. In some cases, a Hail Mary fungicide application at R4 up to early dent (R5) might make sense this season, say agronomists.
With at least four weeks left in the growing season, Ferrie encourages farmers to stay ahead of heavy disease pressure in fields, particularly in what he calls D hybrids — those that punch their yield card late-season.
Short-stature corn is often planted at higher populations because its architecture allows for better light interception and more efficient use of resources when plants are grown closer together. But that’s not always the case, according to Ken Ferrie, Farm Journal Field Agronomist.
Just as corn growers were ready to put their pollination problems behind them, another one comes along. This time, the issue had to do with moisture occurring at the wrong time, and the results are significantly impacting yield.
So far, the problem has been confirmed in four states. Agronomists are encouraging farmers to scout crops, estimate yield impacts in affected fields and determine whether to make adjustments to marketing plans.
This year’s program features all new agronomic content to help farmers grow and harvest high-yielding crops. Two of the key sessions: selecting a corn planter that’s right for your farm, and developing a systems approach to success with early-season soybeans. We look forward to seeing you there!
In some cases, the sulfur deficiency can be traced back to last fall when ammonium sulfate and DAP were taken out of fertilizer programs to reduce costs. In other scenarios, the corn just isn’t getting adequate sulfur — but the problem can be corrected.
As one of the most important early season nutrients, Farm Journal field agronomist Ken Ferrie explains the best way to manage phosphorus is one you’ve probably heard of before.
The problem occurs at a specific growth stage – typically between V3 and V5 – as the corn seed roots are handing off their jobs to the first two sets of true crown roots.