ecmn | bstorm - 11/19/2023 18:50
Can you find this thread or so you remember the title?
I posted it last year?
I took a field and I did a very little applied P&K based upon crop removal rates and did not lime the field. I had heard a lot of these soil scientists talk and I thought well let's just see what they say is true. So I reduced tillage I brought in cover crops and reduced commercial fertilizer.
The P level stayed the same after 9 years of hardly any applied. The soil scientists say absolutely because phosphorus is very easy for soil life to make available. And when you bring in crops like buckwheat, buckwheat is almost like a specialist in freeing up phosphorus from the soil, canola or mustard are fantastic sulfur machines.
The potassium level dropped in half. Soil scientists say absolutely. Potassium bonds very quickly and very hard to soil particles and it's more difficult for soil life to free up. The wedding and drying of the clay is what releases the potassium. Soil health and soil life can do it it just takes a lot longer. But we saw no potassium deficiencies in the field and no effect on yield.
Normally around here if you take a field and farm it with full tillage and apply very little fertilizer and very little lime you'll end up with a 5.2 pH and you will see potassium deficiencies. And I picked up a few of these fields and I am not holding back on retail fertilizer waiting for soil life to come in. I am no till in strip till on these fields but I've been trying to pour on the lime in the fertilizer to get them up and running
On this field after 9 years the pH was the same. Soil scientists said absolutely we would expect that because the primary tillage that you're no longer doing oxidizes the soil structure that maintains pH.
Common sales agronomist wisdom had no idea why phosphorus would stay the same and pH would stay the same. It defies everything we've been told by retail sales.
Your soil is literally made of P&K and all the other minerals. It is impossible to mine a field of P&K by farming. It is very easy to make these nutrients unavailable on a standard soil test by farming in a full tillage full retail fertilizer system.
Edited by easymoney 11/20/2023 04:52
|
Let’s talk removal rates
