Faith is back with Chase Perry and Kyle Olson to talk about why crops that look great at tassel can struggle to finish strong—and what growers can do differently heading into 2027.

The conversation dives into late-season stress, disease pressure, and the importance of managing crops beyond the early growing season. The group also challenges conventional fertility strategies, discussing why adding more nitrogen, phosphorus, or potassium doesn't always translate into better yields—and how identifying actual nutrient limitations can help growers build healthier plants, improve efficiency, and protect their bottom line.

In this episode, you’ll learn:

• The Back Half of the Season Matters: Why late-season stress, disease pressure, and limited sunshine can take significant bushels off the top—and why managing through grain fill matters.
• Stress Mitigation Is the Goal: How plant stress can reduce photosynthesis and nutrient uptake, creating a cycle that makes an already struggling crop even more vulnerable.
• More Fertility Doesn't Always Mean More Yield: Why overapplying nitrogen, phosphorus, or potassium can create nutrient imbalances, tie up other nutrients, and hurt plant health.
• Find Your Actual Yield Limitations: How soil structure, plant-available calcium, and micronutrients can play a bigger role than traditional soil tests reveal.
• Use In-Season Data to Make Better Decisions: Why strategically tracking soil and tissue trends can help you adjust your fertility plan instead of reacting to a single test result or automatically adding another product.
• Build a More Efficient Fertility Budget: Why growers should focus on addressing their biggest limitations and reallocating dollars instead of continually increasing input costs.
• Think ROI, Not Just Bushels: How reducing unnecessary fertilizer expenses can improve profitability—even without chasing record-breaking yields.
• Stop Guessing. Start Knowing: Why understanding your fertility budget, using farm-specific data, and working with a trusted agronomy partner can help you make more confident decisions.

This episode is a reminder that you can't control the weather or the markets, but you can take greater control of your farm's decisions. The goal isn't to spend more and hope for a better crop. It's to understand what your system needs, invest where it matters, and build long-term efficiency. As Faith puts it: “If nothing changes, nothing changes.”

After You Listen:

• Subscribe to Rhizometrx to stay updated on new episodes.
• Share this episode with a grower who's rethinking their fertility program for 2027.
• Send Faith your questions or ideas for future episodes at infinityagsolutions@gmail.com.
• Take a fresh look at your fertility budget: Do you know what you're spending, why you're spending it, and which limitations you're actually addressing?