In the lean years, farmers focus our efforts on trimming costs where we can and maximizing profitability on what we can’t cut completely. In the good years, every once in a while, we have a situation where high input prices force us to do the same. This cost-conscious behavior is something we should be doing all the time, but we pay more attention to it some years more than others.
Commercial fertilizer and manure work together well, but only if you know how many nutrients you’re putting out in manure so that you can cut back some on commercial fertilizers and save that expense.