WHEN IT COMES TO CROP YIELDS,
NOT EVERYTHING IS BIGGER IN TEXAS…
But Mark Prinz is always working hard to make his family farm better.
Mark, 39, is a fifth-generation farmer from Coupland, which lies just northeast of Austin in the rolling hills of central Texas.
He has worked full time with his brother, John, and his father, James, for the past 20 seasons. In that time, he’s seen the operation grow from 2000 crop acres to nearly 7000, the vast majority of which is corn. The Prinz family also raises cotton and wheat, plus they allocate additional acres for bermudagrass hay and pasture to support their cow-calf pairs.
Like many farm families, the Prinz siblings were raised as active contributors to the farm, driving tractors, hoeing fields, scouting crops, and working on equipment.
“From about the age of six years old, we were out working,” Mark said. “A lot was rooted around the farm and other farm families, the neighbors, the cousins. We turned wrenches as kids, taking things apart just to put them back together again. Planting and harvest were busy times, and I spent a lot of hours in the tractor cab. I started driving combine when I was 10, and by like 15, I drove and harvested everything we have.”
That upbringing instilled within Mark a strong work ethic and fervent love of making things grow, as well as an appreciation for family and community.
“We never had a curfew growing up, but we were always up to see the sunrise,” he said. “Mom and Dad never cared what time we came home as long as we did our chores and got to school the next day.
We had a lot of good friends and family, and that’s what I like about being on the crop production side. It’s given me a good lifestyle over the years.”
Despite a strong passion for ag, it wasn’t always clear Mark would have the opportunity to remain with the operation. In his heart, he wanted to raise crops, but limited acres at the time meant it likely wouldn’t be feasible for him to join his dad on a full-time basis. So, after high school, he enrolled in construction science at a community college at Blinn in nearby College Station.
“I went off to college because I told myself I didn’t want to be any part of agriculture at all if I couldn’t be on the production side,” Mark said. “But I always wanted to find a way to break back in.”
Mark attended college for about a year before an opportunity unexpectedly came along. In late 2004, a close family friend decided he wanted out of the farming life, so he recommended Mark to his landlords as someone who would be a great fit to take over his lease. They agreed, giving Mark the chance to get a new start on 550 acres, which he started farming alongside his father’s existing ground. That number of acres wasn’t quite enough to justify Mark fully joining the operation, so he decided to also purchase a self-propelled sprayer to apply their own crop protection, and he used that investment to begin a custom application business for additional income.
2005 marked his first crop season, and Mark immediately began working to improve practices and yields.
Up until he joined his dad, the Prinz planter was set to wide, 38-inch rows, so the first change Mark made was to pick up the farm’s first 30-inch-row planter.
This change in cultural practices gave some yield improvements, but the biggest changes were yet to come. In the mid-2010s, the Prinz operation gained a new landlord, Brian Gruis, who brought Mark an opportunity to learn more about the science of soil health.
“We were just farming here knowing the traditional methods of fertilizing, planting seed, and depending on our local colleges, retailers, and seed companies for knowledge,” Mark said. “I met Brian Gruis when he bought a farm I was actively farming, and he introduced me to Darren. At about the same time, I stepped on a nail and ended up in the hospital with osteomyelitis.”
Although Mark wouldn’t recommend shattering bones in his foot or suffering a bone infection bad enough to merit a hospital stay, the experience ended up opening his mind to farming information he might not otherwise have been exposed to.
“I sat in the hospital and at home and watched a lot of Brian and Darren’s show, Ag PhD,” he said. “If I wouldn’t have had that injury where I couldn’t be working like I wanted to every day, we would still be stuck in a rut. They opened our eyes to new soil testing procedures, new soil labs, grid sampling procedures. It’s come a long way to change our operation. The mindset that we were stuck with is that the dirt is so much different here compared to theirs, but it’s not that much different when it comes down to reality. It’s more the same than different. It’s just getting it figured out and dialed in.”
Improving drainage through tiling was one of the practices the Prinz farm adopted after watching Ag PhD.
The concept of installing subsurface drainage wasn’t unfamiliar to Mark, but many growers in his area didn’t believe using tile would make sense in the hot, dry Texas climate. Despite some of the naysayers, in 2016 he and Gruis went in together on a tile plow purchase, and Mark got to work.
“You’d always hear from the old timers down here that we didn’t get enough rain or the weather wasn’t right,” Mark said. “But we had one farm we couldn’t get into except on really dry years. Now, it’s like black and white with what we did. I’ve had areas of farms with very low average yields – sub 100s. Now, those areas are hitting 200. We’ve doubled our yields on some of these farms, which I wouldn’t attribute all to one thing – but the tile has helped drastically.”
The other major change to Mark’s crop production plan has come from improved fertility management.
His prior practices did include soil sampling, but he used very large grids or zones and relied on application recommendations from labs and co-ops when building an application strategy. Now, he uses regular, active grid sampling on small grids and focuses on discovering his actual removal rates on a precision basis and using variable rate to make corrections and improvements to his soil pH and overall fertility.
“Growing up, you’d listen to your retailers, and the college would say, if you want more yield, you should put more pounds on; but that’s not necessarily putting the right thing all the time,” Mark said. “It’s not a guess anymore of what the coop thinks or what helps someone make the best money off of what we’re doing. It’s what we actually need.”
One tool Mark has used to assist in his fertility management is the VRAFY platform, which he has utilized for the past two years.
As he has increased his soil sampling program, the amount of data to parse becomes more difficult to manage. VRAFY has helped simplify that process.
“With VRAFY, it brings the data in together on one platform, so I have my maps at my fingertips,” Mark said. “It’s been very, very useful and very user friendly. Before, I’d list the numbers back and not know what it all means or where to put it. But this is black and white – it prints out all the maps of all the nutrients and you put them where you need them, with just a click of a button.”
“I see the trend in the right direction. Yields and ROI are improving because I’m putting the money where it needs to be spent. Just knowing I’m doing the right thing, the peace of mind – that’s really what I’m looking for, you know?”
For Mark, an additional perk of the VRAFY platform is that it integrates seamlessly with John Deere Operations Center, which he already uses for fleet and equipment management.
“It’s a very good platform,” he said. “VRAFY, talking with them, they say you don’t have to use John Deere, but for me, having my soil maps layered in there with all my other maps and boundaries – it’s a no-brainer. I can just pull up my potash recommendation and look at my yield map and see the correlation, or compare any micronutrient or the pH map to yield. We’re planning to use it even more.”
Overall, though, Mark appreciates the effort Brian and Darren make to bring accurate information to farmers in order to help them improve their operations and their bottom lines. Although he admits it can be easy to get into a comfortable groove when it comes to farming practices, he continues to strive to be open-minded to potentially better methods.
“We’re a good example of that if you’re open minded and willing to change and try things, it can work,” Mark said. “We were set in our ways, and if I didn’t sit and watch TV and read during that injury I wouldn’t have been as open to it, but it’s just been positive changes. These guys aren’t just a co-op or a radio show. They’re truly helping people, and it’s been nice to be a part of it. I just appreciate their honest approach. What they talk about, they’re not profiting off any of it — they’re just down to earth and it’s good, true knowledge.”