In recent years, the ag industry has focused more and more on managing not only fertility, but also biology in order to generate increasing yields.

Brad Petersen, 53, is a farmer whose family has raised crops near the town of Hardwick, Minnesota for four generations. However, it’s only been in the last few seasons that he’s begun looking at his ground in completely new ways.

“You used to get done combining, call and tell someone to come take your soil samples, they’d tell you what to put on, and away you go – whatever the local agronomist said, you just did,” Brad said. “But I like growing crops. I want to see what I can do better, learn what works and what doesn’t work. I’m not afraid to think out of the box or try something new.”

Although his love of farming is strong, Brad wasn’t always sure it was the life he wanted.

He grew up working with his father and grandfather, as well as a huge family locally he could share his experiences with. Although many have moved away in the years since, Brad fondly recalls the tight-knit nature of his family in both work and play.

“We always had family around,” he said. “Dad was one of eight brothers and sisters. It was fun, and we always had something to do. We did a lot of square baling and filling barns and hay racks. We picked a lot of rock. It was a lot of labor, but the whole family was involved – lots of cousins and aunts and uncles would be around to do stuff. Our immediate family at Christmas had 70 to 80 people, and we all lived near each other.”

Despite these positive experiences, initially Brad had the notion of becoming a teacher and school sports coach. After graduating high school, he headed to Sioux Falls College to pursue that ambition, but it didn’t take long for him to change his mind.

“When I got to school, I got homesick and missed the farm so much,” he said. “After I realized that wasn’t what I wanted to do, I transferred to SDSU and got my associate’s degree in agriculture.”

After completing school, Brad returned to the farm in a limited capacity, raising soybeans on about 60 acres while working part time off the farm. That first season brought about his most arduous farming experiences to date.

“1993 was the worst year to come back,” he said. “I should have had 60 acres of beans. We got 12 acres planted, then it started raining and just didn’t quit. We seeded the other 48 acres by dropping them on with a helicopter. When we combined them, they did 12 bushels to the acre. One neighbor who managed to get everything in and applied only got 8 bushels.”

If beans were a disaster, the family’s corn fared worse. The Petersens managed to get all their corn planted prior to the flooding but had to disk it all in that fall and collect crop insurance. Despite the difficulty, Brad tried keeping a positive outlook.

“It was one of those years where you just wanted to start over,” he said. “I didn’t quit. I figured it couldn’t be this bad every year, could it? In any case, I’m not a quitter. I knew it would get better.”

Brad stuck with it, growing his role in the farm, eventually going full time and taking over full management in 2014.

Today, the operation covers 650 tillable acres of corn, soybeans, cereal rye, and oats, along with about 100 acres of pasture and hay ground to support their modest cow/calf population. Once he fully embraced the role, his natural curiosity and drive for improvement came forth.

“I like farming, I like taking care of cattle, and I like growing crops, learning what I can do better, what works, and what doesn’t work,” he said. “I’m not afraid to think outside of the box to try something new.”

A major gateway allowing the Petersens to try new things opened when he reached out to Hefty Seed in 2018.

In his first conversation with Baltic Agronomist Rob Fritz, Rob invited him to attend an Ag PhD Soils Clinic and discuss his farm’s goals, taking Brad on a deep dive into a fertility management strategy.

“It was just such a different way of looking at things,” Brad said. “The farmer is more involved. I know more about what’s going on in my fields instead of just asking an agronomist what to do. The way they teach at Hefty’s, I’ve learned more in these last six years than I did in my first 20 years farming.”

As a result of his approach, Brad became a student of agronomy as a whole, expanding his soil sampling program and learning more about the ramifications of test results for his crops. He’s also expanded his knowledge of variety selection and crop protection products. Perhaps one of his greatest growth areas, however, has been fine-tuning his fertility application plan. A significant portion of Brad’s fertility involves manure, and he would traditionally apply rates higher than may have been ideal.

“We used to apply around 3500 to 3700 gallons per acre because we were going for the nitrogen level,” he said. “Now, we shoot for around 3000 because it matches perfectly for our P and K needs. That leaves us a bit shorter on nitrogen, but we can come back and apply that along with some sulfur that we found we were short on. Last year was the first year we did this, and it was the best corn I ever raised in my life.”

Brad has also conducted other yield trials on his farm, with new cultural practices and Naturals products, all with the goal of supporting the expansion of soil quality and soil life. He’s been moving away from using nearly all fall tillage, as well as working with Rob on more unorthodox trials such as skip row corn, where he’d plant two rows of corn, followed by a 60-inch gap, followed by another two rows of corn. The goal of this practice is to reduce seeding while using the gap row to maximize sunlight absorption and increase yields, and he’s seen decent yields, though continues to tweak his approach from year to year.

With Hefty Naturals, Brad has begun adopting Micro-Cycle in the furrow with his corn. In his recent trials, he made three comparisons – starter only, starter with Micro-Cycle, and Micro-Cycle alone with water alone. He found that the product has provided a compelling advantage, especially in a strategy incorporating manure.

“We found we can get by with just using Micro-Cycle and water and drop the starter out,” he said. “Micro-Cycle helps break down our manure faster so it’s more plant available. In the field with Micro-Cycle mixed with water, we averaged 260 bushels with Hefty 5432 on a whole field. Overall, my corn in 2023 was the best I’d grown, ever. I put that down to what we’re doing with manure, fertility supplements, and biologicals.”

Brad’s overall goal is to continue building his soil health and soil biology using sources like manure, accompanied by Naturals.

“It’s along the same lines of what we’re doing with cover crops, soil biology, and keeping things going in the soil,” he said. “The Naturals go right along with that. I think there’s a lot more answers there, but it’s going to take some time and some more research. The way the soil works naturally, if we can help it act how it’s supposed to, I just think there’s a lot of opportunity there. Between our cover crops, doing a bigger, more diversified crop rotation, and supplementing with Naturals and other products, I think we can really unlock things and take them to the next level. I look at field management as managing biology so the soil can produce the yields we want, as well as the tonnage we need for feed.”

As he continues to build his knowledge and make new trials on the farm, Brad appreciates the support he’s received from working with Rob Fritz and other Hefty Agronomists.

“I just like working with all those guys,” he said. “Everybody is so knowledgeable and so welcoming, it’s just so easy to walk in and talk to anybody. If you have a problem somewhere, somebody’s looking at it trying to figure out what’s going on. Sometimes I feel I have too many trials going, but at the end of the day that’s the only way you learn things.”

“I watch Ag PhD, I’ve been to quite a few of the different seminars, and I’m part of Farm Club. I’ve learned so much just by sitting there and listening to other people’s experiences. It’s nice to be around people who know what they’re doing and care about what they do, and I appreciate all the effort they put into all the things they do. It makes farming fun, and I’m already looking forward to next year.”