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| This is quite an interesting string. The way I view problems with potash uptake is by looking at about 6 or 7 different numbers on the soil test. The ppm K is only going to tell if K is in the soil, not if it is available to plant uptake. Other cations such as Mg, Ca, Cuand sodium tend to compete for negative charges that are in the soil. pH is also important for uptake, for example, K availability is quite low at a pH of 8.
When refering to corn, mobile nutrients in the plant are K, N & P, so it will remove these nutrients from lower leaves to upper leaves in order to maximize its potential to produce seed. I think there are a lot of farmers that see this and put it off that it is related to plant death or maturity. Plants should die from the top down, as they translocate resources to the fruit or seed.
Potash is involved in opening & closing to stomata on the leaf, and by provding enough K, we can help make the plant more water efficient up top.
We have not even started talking about driving roots, and this is important for all aspects of plant health (standability, drought resistance, seed set, disease resistance). You can not feed a successful football player when his jaw is wired shut, and this is where no-till is helping by making better root structure.
Post some soil test and we can go through them. If you can match tissues up, post them with...have any tissues from previous years Gumbo? Even other crops.
Here's a page that explains this a little cleaner...
http://www.alcanada.com/techs/tech_soilchemprop.html
Hope this helps
The Farmer's Edge Agri-Coaching
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Potash and drought proofing?
