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Delta growers reap the rewards of SMART farming

BY EVA ANN DORRIS
DBJ Contributing Writer

Calvin Ward has grown soybeans for 29 years. His farm manager Lane Jenkins has grown them for 15 years. The two men, both from Benoit, MS, consistently produce crops above the Mississippi average.

However, good just isn’t good enough. After hearing about Mississippi’s SMART program, a soybean verification program nationally recognized for revolutionizing soybean production, they contacted Mississippi State University’s soybean specialist Alan Blaine and asked to be considered for Mississippi’s SMART program, which stands for Soybean Management by Application of Research and Technology.

The verification program allows growers to manage soybean fields and apply proven research and technology under close observation of agronomists and specialists. The practices recommended by the SMART team are no different than practices available to all growers; but the SMART team regularly scouts fields and are persistent about growers preventing and treating problems in a timely manner.

Ward and Lane entered a 150-acre field in the program in 2003. Their total soybean acreage is just over 1,400 acres.

“We are about one-third irrigated,” says Ward. “And I knew we weren’t getting the yields from those irrigated fields that we should be. We were open to suggestions about all aspects of production, but we knew we needed irrigation advice.”

“We were using surface irrigation with levees, which automatically lost us about 10 acres of production due to the levees. Then, we had another 28 acres of that field that we couldn’t get the water on and off of in a timely way,” says Jenkins

The first recommendation of the SMART team, which includes MSU irrigation specialist Jim Thomas, was to change the irrigation to the border method using polypipe. The SMART team surveyed the fields and made the necessary recommendations for grade and border irrigation. The adaptation increased their yields from about 50 bushels to 69 bushels an acre and brought all but seven acres of the field into the border irrigation program.

The men followed the recommendations of the SMART team by completing tasks how and when they were told.

“We put out pre and post applications when they told us to; we planted when they told us to; and we planted what they told us to,” says Jenkins.

In 2003, they planted Delta King 5366, a Roundup Ready Group V variety by April 15 and harvested them around Sept. 25.

“We just didn’t question what they told us to do. We knew what they had done elsewhere in the state to boost soybean yields, and we had confidence in them,” says Ward.

The accomplishments of the SMART program are impressive. In the early 1990s, when the program began, the statewide average yields for Mississippi soybeans was 21 bushels an acre. In 2003, that average was 36 bushels an acre.

Average yields of the participating fields for the 12 years of the SMART program have been 60.9 bushels an acre for irrigated fields and 41.5 bushels an acre for dryland beans.

This season, Ward and Jenkins again entered the 150-acre field in the program. They planted DP 4922 soybeans, and they planted in mid-March with plants emerged by April 6.
“This is the earliest we have ever planted beans,” says Jenkins.

The two plan to take many of the management tips from the SMART field and apply them to the rest of their fields, which is a main goal of the SMART program. By verifying research and technology on the farms of cooperating growers, neighboring farmers observe and see the valid results of stricter management practices.

“I was impressed that our team treated this like it was their field. They wanted it to produce to its full potential,” says Ward. “They also aim to increase the economic viability. They want us (farmers) to make more money, not just more yields. They are conscious that it’s easy to throw a lot of chemicals and high-priced production methods at a crop and obviously produce higher yields, but farmers can’t make money that way. The SMART concept is to increase yields and make money.”

The two men are more optimistic this year than last. They realize the yield potential in the field and hope by planting an earlier variety they will be able to boost per acre yields and prices with August premiums.

“I have already booked some beans for $1.80 over the November basis,” says Ward. “That’s unbelievable. We could realistically receive $9 an acre for our early beans.”

When asked if they think using soybean check-off money is a good way to fund the SMART program, they both nodded, grinned, and Ward says “unequivocally, it is the best way to spend that money.”

“Soybeans have always been the step child of our row crops, but with us, they aren’t any more,” says Ward. “It’s how we make our living, and we know with new and proper management we can do a lot better than we have in the past, and we give credit to our association with SMART for that.”

Ward and Jenkins are now shooting for 70-bushel-an-acre beans on all their irrigated land and 50 or more acres a bushel on their dryland acreage.

Jenkins says he is in constant contact with members of the SMART team and one of them comes to the field at least once a week and talks to him by phone more frequently than that.

Another management practice the team stresses to Jenkins and Ward is the importance of scouting their field and watching closely for early signs of insects, disease or water stress so action can be taken before yield damage is done.

How SMART lives up to its name

The SMART program began in 1992 to demonstrate the impact increased management has on improving the profitability of soybeans by allowing soybean producers to observe recommended production practices on their farm and on other production fields. The program is funded in full by soybean check-off money. Participating fields become educational tools for other growers as new technologies and research are implemented.

Mississippi soybeans producers now regularly use higher-yielding and earlier maturing varieties, earlier planting, improved irrigation scheduling and overall better management.

SMART growers entered 267 fields in the program since its inception. A waiting list exists for farmers wanting to take part in the program. Producers are asked to implement management practices that apply to their fields and represent the best technology available. The recommended practices are directed at the specific needs of each field.

Thirty-eight fields are enrolled in the 2004 program.

The SMART team in Mississippi includes project coordinators, Blaine, Thomas, Dan Poston, soybean specialist at the Delta Research and Extension Center at Stoneville, and Jim Quinn, Mississippi Farm Bureau/MSU-Extension agricultural economist. Other members are retired Extension plant pathologist Billy Moore, retired Extension entomologist Jim Hamer and MSU agronomists Mitt Wardlaw and Brian Ward.

For more information on SMART, contact Blaine at 662-325-2311 or Thomas at 662-325-3103. DBJ

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