Charles City, Va., strip-tiller David Hula recently captured his 13th NCGA High Yield Contest title with a 490-bushel yield in the strip-till irrigated class — nothing new for the third-generation farmer, who remains the only one to break the 600-bushel mark (2019, 2021 and 2023).

“There’s no silver bullet to our success,” Hula says. “The difference is I’ve failed way more times than most have. I try a bunch of stuff — that’s the only way to know what works and what doesn’t.”

Fresh off his best yield ever — 623 bushels per acre — Hula shared his playbook during a Q&A session with attendees at the 2024 National Strip-Tillage Conference. Here are some highlights from the conversation.

What do you use the small tank on your ETS SoilWarrior strip-till rig for?

“The small one is where we put the humic acid. We like to do 10-50 pounds of humic acid and then the two bigger tanks are where we put our traditional products for every acre of corn. We apply about 100 pounds of AMS, 150 pounds of MAP and 300 pounds of 0-0-60. And for every 8 pounds of phosphorus (P), we’re adding 1 pound of zinc. We’ve always applied in the spring because if we do it in the fall, all that fertilizer is going to disappear with our low-CEC levels.”

Our biggest concern has been with nitrogen (N), which we’re applying with the sidedress rig and the planter. What are your thoughts on N — what are you doing and what’s working?

“I’m not a big fan of broadcasting N, except on our small grains. When I’m applying N, I’m doing it to achieve a specific goal — like making weight. We’re applying 66 pounds of N with a Conceal planter attachment. We actually use a 66-33-0 sulfur, boron and zinc, and we want the P deep.

WEIGHT WATCHERS. The 3 ears on the right, grown under Hula’s high-yield management program, weighed significantly more than the 3 ears on the left, grown under his standard management program. “We’re trying to understand where yield is captured and where yield is lost,” Hula says. “There’s a big difference in test weight and little difference in kernel count.” David Hula

“Broadcast a little bit of N and sulfur in front of your corn crop to stimulate biology. If you’re in Minnesota, how much biology is working just before you plant corn? Why not feed that biology a little something in the strip? We use EZ-Drops now because I’m big into side placement. When you dig between corn rows, where are the roots? How deep were they and how close to the surface? There’s a lot of fertility there that you’re not using.”

What are you doing to bring your problem soils up to par?

“Turn them into solar panels. I’m just kidding, we haven’t done that yet, but we get asked a lot because we’ve got transmission lines. I don’t own any of the real bad soils. We do have some loamy sand that if there was water there, it’d strictly be a beach. That’s cash rented, so it’s hard to build that stuff up. We focus on stripping it and we don’t broadcast any fertilizer. Now, would you even entertain farming ground that has a 120-bushel yield goal? That’s what it is. But if we get plenty of rain, we’ve seen 200 bushels on it. We’ve also seen 30 bushels.

“We plant some cover crops on the tougher soils and apply humic acid to try and stimulate the soil biology. We try and get some chicken litter on it as well and lower the corn plant population to where we don’t go below 20,000 because then we start getting weed pressure.”

Do you split-apply fertilizer through your irrigation system? And if you’re increasing plant population, do you consider increasing the amount of fertilizer?

“We used to fertigate, but we’ve gotten away from that because it wasn’t the most efficient. We’re on the Chesapeake Bay. We must follow a nutrient management plan. We start sidedressing corn as soon as we can. The reason I say ‘as soon as we can’ is because we’ve got small grains, soybeans and corn, and only one sprayer covering all our acres. That sprayer is used for crop protection — killing insects on small grains, spraying herbicides on soybeans and corn. The 66 pounds of N we apply with the planter can carry the corn crop to V8-V9 until it runs out.

“I have 472 acres this year that haven’t been sidedressed. It was dry. We applied 2 tons of chicken litter, and the 66 pounds of N is going to carry it. I said, ‘We’re going to sidedress when it rains.’ It didn’t rain. I saved myself a bunch of money.

“I’ve been around growers who say, ‘I want to have more bushels.’ What do they do? They plant more seed, but they don’t feed it. And what’s going to happen? They might pick up a few bushels, but they don’t pick up what they’re covering. You’ve got to feed the crop. It takes N, potash, sulfur, P, copper, boron, manganese and all those micronutrients. I told my son not long ago that he’s going to see way more exciting things — he’s not going to be buying as much NPK. He’s going to be buying more bugs in a jug.”

You referenced reducing your P application by 42%. What was your fertility program before cutting back your P rates?

“We fertilize for a rotation — corn, small grain, double crop soybeans. We used to broadcast 400-600 pounds of potash in front of our corn because we know corn is a luxury consumer of potash. The corn crop is going to pick it up, it’s going to decay and be there for the small grain. Then, when the soybeans are harvested, that’s when it leaves. Now, with strip-till, we’re down to about 300 pounds of potash.

“P wise — we used to apply about 200 pounds of MAP in front of small grains. But with strip-till, we’re only applying about 80 pounds. Ahead of corn, we used to broadcast 250 pounds of MAP. With strip-till, we’re down to about 150 pounds.”

What depth is ideal for dry fertilizer placement in your soils?

“For P, you want it in the root zone. Gravity is going to pull. If we’re doing high salts, we don’t want it to be right where the seed is. I want it to be several inches below the seed and then we’re hoping we get some rain. With our ETS SoilWarrior, we’re going only 4 inches deep. I’m not trying to go 6-8 inches because I don’t have enough horsepower.

“If you’re running a shank, make sure it’s coming out of the bottom, not dribbling out of the top because if you actually planted that shank mark, you could get injury from some salts. We want to be at least a couple inches below the seed. There’s an 80-pound salt limit. Take a baseball — the center of the baseball, that’s where your seed is. You don’t want more than 80 pounds around in that baseball.”

What’s your approach to managing cover crops?

“If we’re doing a cover crop, we’re focused on really one thing — retrieving nutrients. When people just broadcast cereals on top of the soil, they’re not getting a good root system. We drill it. You’ve got to treat the cover crop like a cash crop.

“I’m not a guy who wants to plant into a living cover crop. To have a 300-bushel crop, you must have a 300-bushel stand. I want all that corn to come up uniformly. I’ve seen guys have great success with planting green. I’m not going to say it doesn’t work, but I haven’t seen them consistently get the emergence that I want to see.”