Progressive Agronomy Consulting Services- PACS LLC

07/23/2026

07/22/2026

Remember Dr. Below’s “7 wonders of the corn world” talks a few years ago? He was big on using the Omission plot to understand where yield was coming from. Albeit, there are a lot of other factors that I believe should also be studied and researched more than what he was studying. But hear me out. With all the grand amount of biologicals and biostimulants coming to market from big ag to entrepreneurs, we should ask if they have this kind of research to validate their products claims and compare LSD’s on the research. If someone wants to send me some grant money, I have some ideas 😜.

07/21/2026

What if all things about precision agronomy was using this great technology to measure the wrong things?

07/21/2026

You’ve asked, and you shall receive. Here is a graphic explaining how much temperature and moisture can impact soybean yield.

07/20/2026

https://ocj.com/2026/07/managing-carbon-to-nitrogen-ratios-is-key-to-cover-crop-success/

07/17/2026

Congratulations🎉! You’ve made it to tassel. All your work and money invested into this crop is about to pay off!
Or is it……
From tassel till R5, nearly 60% of the corn yield is still yet to be determined. And the biggest influencer of yield through this time is something we don’t even have control over, weather. We want it to be not too hot, not too cold, not too wet, not too dry. You know, the Goldilocks approach.
The second influencer of yield is actually kind of embarrassing. Did you know that for every dollar you spent on fertilizer that only about $0.30 of that $1 actually got into the plant? Shhh… don’t tell the wife this. This is worse than buying that new Milwaukee tool that you just had to have but told her it was your buddies and you were just borrowing it. Just because we applied it doesn’t mean the plants actually took it up and used it. If you didn’t have the right nutrients in place and in the right form for the plant to take up, your plant may not put weight to each of the kernels it determined it could produce on an ear at V10-V12.

This is where the power of my soil and plant sampling protocol comes into place and where we can drive real value to help finish that plant to be as efficient as possible with every dollar of input. Want to learn more? Let’s chat!

07/16/2026

Still on the fence about fungicide? Here’s a resource map for you about tar spot presence. It seems that every year we spray early, tar spot shows up late and while this resource shows that there shouldn’t be a need for a second fungicide pass, many people will do it anyways. I am in the camp of waiting until R2 to spray fungicides if needed. At least that way it will carry you later in the season and not need that second pass.

Also, it is likely that much of the benefit we see from a fungicide application is due to suppressing ethylene production. Folks, we can do that with a simple application of potassium acetate, cobalt, moly, zinc, manganese, boron, sulfur, seaw**d extracts, yucca extracts and amino’s. These will help reduce oxidative stress while also helping to suppress ethylene. And cost way less than the fungicide pass.

Tar spot is caused by the fungus Phyllachora maydis. Tar spot is still a relatively new disease in the United States and Canada and tracking its past and current distribution can help us learn more about the disease. Counties, provinces or parishes that are highlighted in yellow on the map have had....

07/10/2026

🌽 Bacterial vs. Fungal Diseases in Corn

Correct diagnosis matters because fungicides only work on fungal diseases—not bacterial diseases.

Bacterial disease clues:
• Water-soaked or greasy-looking lesions
• Wavy or irregular lesion margins
• Shiny dried bacterial ooze
• Dark “freckles” inside lesions
• Soft, slimy or foul-smelling stalk tissue

Common examples include Goss’s wilt, bacterial leaf streak, Holcus spot and bacterial stalk rot.

Best management: resistant hybrids, crop rotation, residue breakdown, grass w**d control and reducing plant injury. Fungicides will not control bacterial disease.

Fungal disease clues:
• Rectangular or cigar-shaped lesions
• Rust-colored pustules
• Black raised spots that do not rub off
• Visible spores or fungal growth

Common examples include gray leaf spot, northern corn leaf blight, tar spot, rusts, stalk rots and ear rots.

Best management: hybrid resistance, rotation, residue management, scouting and properly timed fungicides when disease, weather, crop stage and economics justify treatment.

Balanced nutrition can improve plant strength and stress tolerance, but it will not make a susceptible hybrid immune or cure an established infection.

Bottom line: Before spraying, determine whether the problem is bacterial, fungal or even noninfectious. The best disease management decision starts with the right diagnosis.

07/09/2026

As everyone is scrambling around trying to decide to spray fungicide or not, I find this statement to be more than accurate. I’ve been digging into plant health and nutrition for a few years now and it’s ironic how in 1987 Flannery grew 307 bushel corn on fewer inputs and different concentration ratios of nutrients in the entire plant than what today’s plants have. He did this all without fungicide. Fungicide use never exploded until the last 15-20 years, but talking with older folks than myself, disease was not as prevalent as it is now. Could our ignorance in understanding of plant physiology, morphology, biochemistry be what is needed to produce crops that could be less susceptible to disease? Is the way we fertilize for growth similar to feeding hogs Paylean? Essential displacing fat with lean meat. Maybe the value isn’t in the amount of protein produced but the quality, flavor, and tenderness that fat added to the chop that was served for dinner. Has critical thinking become a thing of the past and we are just on a race to the bottom?

07/06/2026

It’s like I’m sampling rice fields in Arkansas instead of wheat fields in Illinois.