"Really like the ability to fine-tune our operation and continue to grow and get better every year.”

Chad Ellis | a corn and soybean farmer from Illinois

“My name is Chad Ellis of Quaker Point Farms in Christman, Illinois. It’s a fifth generation family farm located on the Illinois-Indiana state line.

Been involved with the farm operation my entire life, been back full-time to the farm for the last three years. We raise corn and soybeans, primarily no-till, do some limited vertical tillage.

Prior to Precision Planting, probably our biggest challenges that we faced were just the variability in our operation. We farm in two states, across four different counties. And a lot of lot of variability in the soils. Black soils all the way to poorly drained, rolling timber soils, and just the different challenges that each of those bring.

Our fertility programs have evolved quite a bit over the years. We've went from anhydrous pre-plant to side dressing anhydrous and moved several years ago to an all liquid program, using thirty-two percent.

We're now moving into more of a split application running Conceal on the planter with our first pass of nitrogen, coming back with a late-season nitrogen application. We've also been running FurrowJet running starter products as well, trying to just feed the crop, as opposed to just, throw in all of our, all of our eggs in one basket here and, you know, with the prices the way they are and especially on ground being able to more closely manage what we're what we're putting out there.

This past year when we decided to put Conceal on, we were looking for a way to get an increase in our rates that we were putting on with the planter. We were in the past, had been dribbling nitrogen on top of the ground, concerned with our rates in that scenario because of loss and other things.

We wanted the ability to get it in the ground somewhat, and be able to run those rates, but still be safe to the sea. vApply has been a huge benefit to us from the standpoint of, we always struggled with row-to-row variability when we were running a red ball and orifice-type systems.

We thought everything we could do to try and balance those out with limited success. From the first time we put the vApply on, was pretty amazed at the row-to-row consistency. And the ability to quickly change rates. So as we move across our different soil types, where we'd had to switch orifices on a regular basis, on the machine, it's now simple with changing the number on the screen.

In general, Precision Planting has given us the ability to try to optimize the inputs that we're putting in, be better stewards of our ground, trying to preserve our farm for my son and our future generations. Just really like the ability to fine-tune our operation and continue to grow and get better every year.”