Episode 161: Increasing Corn Yields with Fewer Inputs with Jake Ewing

Regenerative Agriculture Podcast

AEA Marketing

Earth Sciences, Science, Natural Sciences

4.7 • 546 Ratings

🗓️ 7 August 2025

⏱️ 51 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Jake Ewing farms 1,300 acres of corn in Western Illinois, a relatively small operation compared to neighboring farms. Jake's farm has been shaped by the need to compete in a region dominated by large-scale commodity crop production, forcing him to rethink traditional approaches to corn farming, and developing a focus on innovative, cost-effective practices.

Jake's journey toward regenerative agriculture began with the purchase of a high-clearance sprayer, initially intended for conventional applications. This led to experiments with foliar fertilizers and reductions in herbicides and fungicides. His focus on soil health and plant nutrition has boosted yields to 275-285 bushels per acre, surpassing county averages while lowering costs.

In this episode, John and Jake discuss:

Reducing nitrogen applications to 160 pounds per acre, with only 100 pounds soil-applied, using foliar urea for efficiency.
Foliar applications of manganese, copper, and cobalt to improve plant health and delay senescence, increasing yields.
How foliar sprays in the evening with larger droplets enhance nutrient absorption by keeping solutions liquid longer.
Eliminating insecticides and cutting fungicide use to a half-rate single pass, aiming for total elimination.
How adequate manganese, copper, and zinc levels in sap tests reduce disease pressure, minimizing fungicide needs.

About John Kempf
John Kempf is the founder of Advancing Eco Agriculture (AEA). A top expert in biological and regenerative farming, John founded AEA in 2006 to help fellow farmers by providing the education, tools, and strategies that will have a global effect on the food supply and those who grow it.

Through intense study and the knowledge gleaned from many industry leaders, John is building a comprehensive systems-based approach to plant nutrition – a system solidly based on the sciences of plant physiology, mineral nutrition, and soil microbiology.

Support For This Show & Helping You Grow
Since 2006, AEA has been on a mission to help growers become more resilient, efficient, and profitable with regenerative agriculture.

AEA works directly with growers to apply its unique line of liquid mineral crop nutrition products and biological inoculants. Informed by cutting-edge plant and soil data-gathering techniques, AEA's science-based programs empower farm operations to meet the crop quality markers that matter the most.

AEA has created real and lasting change on millions of acres with its products and data-driven services by working hand-in-hand with growers to produce healthier soil, stronger crops, and higher profits.

Beyond working on the ground with growers, AEA leads in regenerative agriculture media and education, producing and distributing the popular and highly-regarded Regenerative Agriculture Podcast, inspiring webinars, and other educational content that serve as go-to resources for growers worldwide.

Learn more about AEA's regenerative programs and products: https://www.advancingecoag.com

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Hi, friends, welcome to the Region of Agriculture podcast. This is John Kempf, and I'm here today to have another fun conversation.
0:08.9	You know the general topics that we often talk about related to agronomy and plant health and improving the entire farm and food ecosystem from many different dimensions. Today I'm here with Jake Ewing. It's a conversation I've looked forward to for a while. Jake has been doing some quite interesting stuff in commercial commodity crop production. And you know it's for folks who have a perspective on, there's certainly a recurring refrain of why are we growing the degree of commodities that we are.
0:48.0	And why are we growing 40% of our corn acres for ethanol consumption and so forth?
0:52.2	And there's, that's a whole separate conversation.
0:54.7	There's, I'm of the persuasion that that doesn't make a whole lot of sense from a, from a
0:59.5	macro perspective. But the reality is that is what exists today. And we need to figure out how to
1:06.8	improve soil health and how to improve our crop crops performance, even in that type of environment.
1:12.5	So I'm really looking forward to having this discussion with you, Jake.
1:16.9	Thanks for being here.
1:18.0	Tell us a little bit about your context, your operation, the scope of the work that you're doing.
1:24.0	Yeah, so it's great to be here.
1:25.7	You know, it's really an honor.
1:27.4	We are actually at this point just corn growers in western Illinois. We, me and dad, split off of our larger farm a few years ago and we've just been kind of branched out on our own. And, you know, in that, we have been, we're a small farm as far as commodity crops go. We're just over 1,000 acres, you know, and this year we actually stepped up a little bit to 1,300.
1:49.4	But, you know, as far as the farms in our area, we're a small farm.
1:53.0	And so because of that, we've had to really kind of think outside the box on, you know,
1:57.7	making ends meet and being able to afford to actually exist in this space in our region.
2:05.4	And, you know, because of that, we've started down the path of going,
2:11.7	we've got to raise the most corn what we possibly can, you know, with the cheapest possible inputs.
2:17.0	And that's really led us down this path into what I would, you know,
2:21.3	consider a semi-regenerative farm.
2:23.9	And we're working more towards that path all the time.
2:27.1	But, you know, change doesn't happen immediately.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from AEA Marketing, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of AEA Marketing and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.