A couple years ago, Jason Webster, who manages the PTI Research Farm in Pontiac, Ill., was talking to a high yield corn grower, and he asked him, ‘Hey, what’s your secret sauce?’ The corn grower said, “That’s easy, it’s the chicken litter we’ve been applying the past 65 years.” Jason immediately knew he had to test it out on the research farm, here’s what he found out.

“This fall, we put on 2.5 tons of dry litter going across the cornstalks. It was super dry. We got it shipped in. Never got rain on it, it was spread pretty good. Nutritionally, that’s a pretty good product but I also look at it and say I think there’s some biology in this as well, so I almost consider this a soil health product.”

“My soil health testing at the PTI Farm has involved cover crops. I’ve been waiting to see the profitability of the cover crops, so I said let’s bring chicken litter in and add it to soil health study and see how long it takes for these guys to pay for themselves.”

“This is soybeans after corn. 2 tons of chicken litter right out of the gate first year has given me the highest yields and highest profitability. I kind of like that. This is corn on corn, we’re tickling 300-bushel corn, 2 ton chicken litter highest yield, not a whole lot of profit there but much higher than some of the other ones that have been in this for multiple years. And finally corn after soybeans, really nice yield gain and some profit in year one, right out of the gate.” 

That was from Jason Webster’ PTx Winter Conference presentation. 

Watch the full Video of this episode of Conservation Ag Update.