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Takeaways
- Costly erosion could have been prevented by not tilling the ground to a 3-inch depth.
- No-till would have earned an extra $56 per acre in net profit.
- Strip-tilling would have been another money-making idea.
A year ago, John Deere agreed to let a New York City journalist grow and market corn from 20 acres of Iowa’s rich soil.
As reported by Farm Journal farm machinery editor Mathew J. Grassi, David Cogen partnered with John Deere to till, plant, spray and harvest a 20-acre field at the company’s Bondurant, Iowa, research farm. Cogen’s mission was to determine if he could accomplish what farmers achieve in placing food on America’s dinner tables.
Unlike most farmers, Cogen had intensive guidance from John Deere staffers throughout the year-long crop journey. This included use of a 30-foot field cultivator pulled by an autonomous tractor with no driver, a See & Spray self-propelled rig and combine that included all the latest high-tech bells and whistles any farmer could dream for — not to mention a blank check for seed, crop inputs, fuel and labor on 20 acres of corn.
Winter Crop Planning
Cogen’s challenge started in the winter by ordering soil tests and GPS-based variable rate fertilizer applications. He flew back to Iowa to complete a spring tillage pass with a 30-foot-wide field cultivator that worked the ground to a 3-inch depth ground before planting with a 30-foot-wide planter. In the video that encompasses the entire growing season, Cogen said Deere told him he must do some type of tillage for maximum yield.
Next came another Iowa trip to spray weeds post-emergence with Deere’s See & Spray system. In the fall, he returned for harvest and to haul and sell the corn to a local ethanol processing plant and grain elevator.
“Deere told him he must do tillage for maximum yield…”
Total Profit Only $1.14 per Acre
Cogen’s 20-acre averaged 209 bushels per acre of corn, producing just over 3,000 total bushels. Total expenses for the year (land rent, seed, fertilizer, herbicides and other costs) totaled $16,456, while total revenue for the 19.24 acres of harvested corn was $16,478.
The New York City writer turned farmer only banked $22 in total profit from the 20-acre field.
“Honestly, I hope that like myself, that this has opened your eyes into what it actually takes to farm,” Cogen says at the end of the 39-minute video produced by John Deere “With all of the work that goes into it, I have a new appreciation for farming and for farmers.”
No-Till A Better Option
Admitting my No-Till Farmer bias, if Cogen had no-tilled this 20 acres of corn, he could have come away with a total profit of $1,120 rather than the measly $22 earned with reduced tillage.
No-till would have gotten the job done with fewer expenses, leading to more profit for the New York journalist turned farmer. My math is based on an average value of an extra $56 per acre, which comes from looking at data from hundreds of no-till grower experiences and research trials.
With fuel costs alone, USDA data shows a savings of $7.28 per acre simply by switching from the minimum tillage used here to no-till.
Another expense cutter would be seeding rye as a cover crop the previous fall. This would have set him back around $15 per acre for seed and seeding, but would have reduced nitrogen needs and led to a reduced herbicide bill.
More profit was definitely there if the no-till had been used.
Watch the 39-minute video that covers Cogen’s 2024 corn growing season all the way from soil testing to marketing grain.
