Cory Willness, president of CropPro Consulting, joins Dan to explain why most producers who tried variable rate fertilizer and gave up were working from the wrong data the whole time. He walks through how SWAT maps (Soil, Water, and Topography) replaced satellite imagery as the real base layer for fertility decisions, and why water, not colour on a screen, drives yield variability everywhere in North America. The tension is that an entire industry keeps blaming the concept of variable rate for failures that actually trace back to bad mapping and a near total absence of precision ag education at Western Canadian universities. Producers walk away with a concrete example of how reallocating an existing fertilizer budget, not spending more, can be the easiest money on the farm.
Most producers who say variable rate doesn't pay never actually mapped what's under their own dirt. Cory Willness, president of CropPro Consulting, built SWAT maps (Soil, Water, and Topography) after five years of research showed satellite imagery was never a reliable base layer for fertility decisions. Water, not satellite color, is what actually drives yield variability everywhere in North America.
What's Inside
- Why the same field can flip from your best acres to your worst depending on whether the year is wet or dry
- How reallocating an existing fertilizer budget, not spending more, is the easiest money in pothole country
- Why elemental sulfur outperforms sulfate sulfur on sandy hills that get regular rain
- What a nitrogen rate trial across 13 sites found when the highest paying rate turned out to be zero
- Why Western Canada has zero university precision ag programs, and what that gap actually costs producers
Resources Mentioned:
CropPro Consulting
Connect with Cory Willness:
CropProConsulting.com
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