We, at Hefty Seed Company – Princeton, hope all our customers had a safe and bountiful harvest! Analyzing our own acres and hearing from many other growers throughout the Midwest and beyond, a few in-season management practices stood out. 

Starting this time last year, we started advising many of our customers to take a closer look at their fertilizer programs more closely due to much tighter margins on the farm. We recommend, in particular, to rethink how much Phosphorus they were applying since we know we can make nutrients currently in our soils more available by slightly adjusting some of our management. The growers that followed our recommendations, almost across the board, saw well above farm averages and in some cases, made record yields. 

Fungicides – Growers that applied an application of a quality fungicide reaped the benefits in 2025. Crop pressure from disease and unusually extreme heat “took the top” off many crops but that damage was mitigated by timely applications of fungicides. Please contact Mike, Matt, or me for yield data showing $30-$100/Acre returns fungicide applications. 

As always, our goal is to partner in your success. As partners, we will help you to build a plan to reach your yield goals while also ensuring that you are profitable.  We offer wholesale pricing from Bayer, BASF, FMC, Syngenta, Corteva, as well as a full line of generic products. 

To learn more about the topics above and much more, please RSVP for our Winter Agronomy event on December 9^th and 10^th. This year, we will be joined by Brian Hefty, Brandt Consolidated, BASF, FMC, Bayer and other representatives from the Agriculture community. To register, visit our website www.heftyseedprinceton.com or call our office at (815)879-8720. We look forward to seeing you there.