A farmer friend once told me that he gauged his farm’s progress over a decade.

In two of those 10 years, farming is so wonderful to the point where money just oozes out of his ears.

In another two years, he’s constantly fighting desperation due to an impending financial implosion.

That leaves six “meh” years — those times where financial margins vacillate between red and black ink. Through careful management, my friend skims profits here and there as he constantly scours ways to make money and save money. What he does during those six years determines the long-term future of his farm.

Certainly, we aren’t in the money-oozing years in 2025. I hope not many of you are in those two desperation years. Stubborn interest rates and sticky input costs are combining to make this the toughest economic environment in a decade.

The good news is agricultural economists and bankers I’ve heard from and visited with don’t fear a return to the dismal economics of the 1980s. Instead, it’s more like the tough economics that started in 2014, after the ethanol boom peaked. We may be heading into a time of the “meh” years, when hopefully profits will outweigh losses over time.

“Those who made adjustments the soonest positioned their operations to better weather the whole cycle [in 2014],” says Jim Knuth, senior vice president for Farm Credit Services of America. “It doesn’t mean they eliminated their losses, but they absolutely reduced their losses. It gave them the financial structure and working capital to have more staying power.”

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Fine-tune agronomics

Fine-tuning agronomics is one way to persevere through thorny economics. It’s complicated, though.

“Agronomic decisions today are made in more of a systems context, meaning each component of the system needs to be selected with consideration for how it will interact with the other elements of the program,” says Tim Laatsch, director of agronomy for North America at Koch Agronomic Services.

It starts with seed.

“Everything in the program flows from there,” Laatsch says. “In corn, the hybrid you pick will have different responses to nitrogen application programs. It may have varying tolerance to disease, which influence your decision on fungicide product and timing.”

Laatsch advises that farmers consider the environment and characteristics of fields where they place seed products. These include factors such as:

Related:Six agronomic steps to take for 2025

Weed-control traits also are part of the package. This decision has become even more complicated for 2025. At press time, it appeared unlikely that dicamba formulations accompanying dicamba-tolerant soybeans won’t be available for 2025.

The absence of one less postemergence herbicide option places more emphasis on residual weed control, says Jesse Grote, Syngenta agronomic services representative.

“We have to concentrate on getting a residual herbicide before or at planting and then come back with a solid rate of a residual with the postemergence pass,” he says.

Seed-applied products

One recent input trend is myriad seed-applied products, such as biologicals and those relating to plant nutrition. “The array of products is truly staggering, almost bewildering, to many growers,” Laatsch says.

So how do you find ones that will benefit your crops?

Start with products that have well-defined modes of actions and proven active ingredients that are correctly loaded on the seed. This will help achieve the desired agronomic effect, he says.

“That can be hard to decipher, even if you have the product label sitting right in front of you,” Laatsch says. “It’s a good idea to partner with an adviser that can help delineate proven ones from imitators and to ensure they’re loaded correctly.”

Related:This winter, set aside time for long-range planning

Hold onto nitrogen

Last year’s rampant rains spurred nitrogen losses across a number of Iowa cornfields.

“Now is a great time to make nitrogen application decisions, instead of during the stress of an in-season decision,” Laatsch says. “Regardless of whether you apply spring anhydrous [ammonia], UAN on the planter or split urea programs, the factor that does not change is that soil nitrogen is a leaky system. Loss is always a major risk consideration due to a factor that is unpredictable outside of your control: weather.”

N stabilizers can remove some of this risk. It’s just not for fall applications, either. Spring applications can ease some N loss worries.

Stabilizer selection hinges upon product, application method and application environment. Urea that’s broadcast in season faces a primary N loss risk of volatilization into the atmosphere. In these cases, a urease inhibitor can reduce N loss potential, Laatsch says. Meanwhile, preplant anhydrous ammonia applications on tiled ground faces an N loss risk due to leaching. In this case, a nitrification inhibitor is the best product to nix N loss.

Keep going

Granted, these times aren’t fun. Still, taking steps such as fine-tuning agronomic plans can help keep your farm going until better times return.

“What it really comes down to is choosing the right product from your [agronomic] toolbox,” Laatsch says. “Decisions made now when the snow is flying are easier to make than those made during the pressure of the growing season.”