Jon Tracey is a third generation farmer in southern Western Ontario, Canada. He farms 2,500 acres of corn, soybeans, canola, and winter wheat. Being raised on a farm all his life, he decided that corn is his favorite crop to grow!! Out of his 2,500 acres of crops, 175 acres are sprayed with Green Lightning.
Tracy saw a bump of calcium in his corn from 0.3 to 0.4 with 28 (UAN 28% N) to almost 0.5 to 0.6 with Green Lightning. It is said that if you can get calcium over 0.5, you are going to see a higher yield in corn. Salt in 28 could be tying up the calcium and prohibiting it from unlocking the calcium’s fullest potential, making Green Lightning a great option to unlock these nutrients.
Tracey notes that his corn with Green Lightning looks healthier compared to other fields of corn. He had someone walk the corn field, and it looked in better condition than the past couple farms, but it could be “because the tar is really bad around there, so it could be just a better ground.” Tracey farms saw an 8 bushel bump with their field of Green Lightning and 28%.
Avoiding the high price of nitrogen since making his own, Tracey saved $60 on hybrid and saved $160 on full replacement with Green Lightning.
Jon states, “What’s going to make more money this year? I’m not sure if the hybrid will or not. I think the hybrid will because what we’re seeing with the hybrid right now is that doing yield tests, instead of, you know, just kernel counts and stuff like that, is that this farm will be as good or above the average farm for us this year." He is forecasting getting around 220-240 bushel per acre on that farm. Their county average is around 180.
Travis asks, “What does farming look like 30 years from now? What are they using? What are they growing?” John Tracy says, “I think they’ll still be growing the same things we’re growing now, but maybe a little more diverse. That’s where our canola kind of comes in. I mean, I think the biggest thing going forward in farming is that the more diversified you are, the more profitable you’re going to be. And that comes back to where Green Lightning comes in, like if we can cut our cost, that’s going to make farms stay around. If we don’t do that kind of stuff, that’s where we’re going to see farming struggle. So I think this state of sustainability of Green Lightning is massive for farming. Travis notes, “Yeah, it’s a legacy.”
Travis continues, “So it’s important not to sell if you want legacy farming. Figuring out to keep the farm instead of selling it.” “Yeah, exactly,” John Tracy says. “We’re so urbanized. The compression in our area is just nonstop. Farmland is getting bought up for houses every day, and we don’t see that being very sustainable. So you know we like to maintain our farms in our family and keep great crops, you know, but it’s got to be profitable... and that’s why I called you in March.”
Tracy is working on lowering his electricity costs because of their high-energy corn dryer. So he uses solar panels to operate the Green Lighting machine, making almost free nitrogen. He also stated that he is trying to go carbon neutral, where the average nitrogen takes about 9.2 pounds of CO2 to make a pound of traditional nitrogen, Green lightning uses none. Jon used 220 pounds of N per acre; that’s one ton of CO2 used to make that nitrogen.
Tracey treats Green Lightning as one gallon of product to 2 lbs of N.
He’s also using it as a carrier in the sprayer, making it more efficient and effective, saving on time and money. He noticed a big accumulation difference when adding a surfactant to Green Lightning when applying.
He states midmorning or late afternoon is best to apply GL. Heavy dew might not be the best time to be on, but it’s cooler temperatures.
Check out the full interview here!!
-Thank you for letting us help you feed the world!! Happy Farming.
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