When two negatives make a positive

摘要

The past two growing seasons have been ones for the books — 2012 was historically dry, and 2013 started out wet and then turned dry. As some growers in the Midwest face yields below expectations, they're finding new and different ways to learn from their data. During the 2012 drought, north-central Iowa growers learned that they were being overly aggressive with plant populations on some lighter soils. This was a new trend for them, as abundant rainfall in previous years had masked these soils' lower water-holding capacity. Since then, growers and advisers have paid more attention to those areas.