One of the most important factors when it comes to buying products far ahead of when you need them is price protection. Basically, you can’t lose.

THIS YEAR, WE ARE ABLE TO PRICE PROTECT YOU ON ALL AG CHEM PRODUCTS (THROUGH APRIL, 2026), WITH THE EXCEPTION OF GLYPHOSATE.

What I’m saying is if our price goes down, you get the lower price PLUS a little extra based on how far back you prepaid. You can’t get that with fertilizer, which is why fertilizer purchase timing is always a little risky. With ag chem purchasing timing, now is when you should buy.

Hopefully they won’t, but with that threat still out there, buying sooner rather than later is a good idea, especially since you have price protection when you buy (see above). Remember just a few years ago when most ag chemical products cost two to three times as much? It is unlikely, but that could happen again. I’d buy now.

We will always encourage you to work with your local bank. My grandpa and his brother owned a couple of banks way back in the 1970s, and local banks are important to communities. That said, many manufacturers are offering 0% financing right now through select ag retailers.

Some, like BASF and Bayer, allow you to finance through Rabo or JDF (John Deere Financial), while most run only through JDF. What I’ve been encouraging farmers to do is exactly what we did on our farm. Run Bayer and BASF products through Rabo and everything else through JDF. In effect, this pretty much doubles your credit line! Our advice is to utilize these programs now.

WHILE THERE WILL STILL BE CHEAP FINANCING IN THE SPRING, YOU WILL THEN PAY SPRING PRICES INSTEAD OF PAYING FALL PREPAY PRICES LIKE YOU CAN RIGHT NOW.

MY BIGGEST TIP ON SAVING MONEY IS TO USE A PRE. Sharpen pre is less expensive than Huskie FX post. Pre-Pare is much less expensive than Axial Bold or Huskie Complete. Zidua isn’t cheap, but if you have tough weeds like Italian ryegrass, you’ll spend as much money or more attempting to get control post-emerge with little success. I’m not saying you can always eliminate your post pass when you use a pre – although that does happen sometimes – but if you want better weed control and improved yields, it all starts by using a pre-emerge herbicide. There are some great ones, and they’re fairly inexpensive.

SPRAY AT LEAST 3 RESIDUAL MODES OF ACTION BEFORE PLANTING! When you spray that early, control will be better since there will be more time to get adequate rain. Plus, when you spray pre-plant, you don’t have to worry about getting the spraying done before the soybeans emerge. Pre-plant is the only timing for Trifluralin and Prowl, and using one of those two saves money and improves weed control versus alternatives.

Did you know that roughly 40% of pre-emerge soybean herbicides get returned each year? Many farmers have great intentions, but the spraying never happens. Apply your soybean pre ahead of planting. If you don’t get the pre out there, you’ll spend more money trying to control weeds post-emerge in soybeans, and you’ll be far less happy with the results. By the way, the 3 Pre’s we always talk about include metribuzin, either Valor or Authority, and then a yellow like I mentioned already above.

RUN WITH HPPDS UNTIL THEY DIE. Okay… This probably isn’t a great strategy since we’re seeing rampant weed resistance to HPPDs, but you’ve got to love the $2 price tag. If HPPDs fail, there is always Status or DiFlexx that have safeners to allow spraying on slightly bigger corn. Far less expensive, though, is adding some cheap dicamba when the corn is very small.

Contact your local Hefty Agronomist for help on making the most cost-effective decisions that fit your farm’s needs.