NK Earns Its Acres On Iowa Farm

Iowa farmer Steven Kruse has been farming at MSR Kruse Farm since he was a high school student in 1979, so it’s safe to say he’s very familiar with his growing environment and soil types — and when it comes to choosing corn hybrids and soybean varieties, he’s all in on NK Seeds.

“I’ve been planting NK for as long as I can remember,” Kruse shares. “I enjoy working with my dealership, Hansmann & Krogman — my dealer offers a lot of insight into the different types of ground we have and matches up my varieties and planting populations.”

It’s an approach that paid off well for Kruse in 2021. By late October, he had finished harvesting his soybeans and was only 20% into his corn — but he was already impressed by what he was seeing on his yield monitor.

“Some of my NK [brand] Enlist E3^® varieties were planted on a field that had been in corn for four years, with a little bit lighter ground variable type, and they ended up doing 74.2 Bu/A,” Kruse shares.

Kruse was also happy that his lowest-yielding beans yielded 67.3 Bu/A this year — one reason he says 2021 was an “exceptional” year for his NK^® soybeans, despite several strong wind storms and a spring frost that nipped 8% of one field. Timely July rains also helped push yields.

The strong performance in Kruse’s fields wasn’t limited to his soybean acres; he was also seeing strong ROI on his NK corn acres. “We have several fields that have been continuous corn for 20 years,” he says. “We use a full rate of insecticide (Aztec^®) with triple stacks, and we’ve had some double stacks, and our standability thus far has been great.”

In his area, Kruse says some farmers who plant other hybrids are facing challenges harvesting or chopping due to downed corn. “They’re losing yield potential through their roots or because their crop is leaning or the root growth was just not there,” he observes. “But we’ve had great luck with our NK hybrids, and we’re extremely happy with them thus far. I believe we’ll have fields that will top 250.0 Bu/A.”

With these results, it’s easy to see why Kruse plants 100% of his soybean acres to NK and plants all of his corn to NK, aside from mixing in one competitor hybrid to do yield checks.

“So far, there’s nothing that has led me to switch from NK,” he says. “When you look at the cost per acre, it’s really cost effective. And what’s impressed me most is the standability.”

Kruse may still be harvesting his 2021 crops, but he’s already thinking ahead to next season. “My seed dealer and I will sit down after harvest and start matching up new hybrids, and ones that have done well for us, across our acres,” he says. “I can’t say I’ll plant more NK next year because that would be very hard to do unless I rent more ground since I only planted 20 bags of a competitor this year — but I can say that NK definitely earns my acres.”