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| I'll bite, and post my fertilizer applications.
This is my first year of producing no-till corn, and I enrolled in the EQIP program for no-till/strip-till and for nutrient management planning (according to U of MN recommendations). As part of this switch, I made a change to banding fertilizer at the same time I am planting. Having used liquid starter fertiziler in the past, and preferring the ease and cost of handling, I stayed with liquid fertilizers.
My soils have Bray P levels of 24-66 ppm, K levels of 121-174 ppm, O.M. of 2.3%-3.6%, and pHs of 6.4-6.9. According to the U of MN, my soils are high to very high in P & K, and need only 10-15 lbs of banded P & K applied for corn production. With conventional tillage, I was usually broadcasting 10-25 lbs P and 50-75 lbs K per coop recommendations. This year I placed 32-11-18-5 (N-P-K-S) either in the seed furrow or 2"x2" with my planter. and followed with 90 lbs of N sidedressed in early June. As of now, I haven't noticed any visual signs of nutrient deficiencies. However, I do plan on putting some of the EQIP funds toward increased soil testing, so I can closely monitor soil levels. I will probably also perform some tissue testing to verify that the plants are receiving the nutrients they need. In particular, my concern is K.
My thoughts on banding are that the majority of the plant root mass is located probably within a 6"-8" radius of the plant, so I want to have the majority of my non-mobile nutrients located near that large root area. I'm not saying that the plant roots don't reach out into the centers of the row, because they clearly do, but anytime I put a shovel in the ground, I certainly find many more roots under the row than in the middles. I realize I didn't address the issue of if the grain from an acre contains 60 lbs of K, then doesn't there need to be 60 lbs of K applied to that acre, either band or broadcast. For now, I'm following the U of MN recommendations, but will be checking to see if I'm mining my soil.
Feel free to poke holes in my comments, as I think this is an excellent topic with many valid points of view.
Charlie | |
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regarding the strip till below
