Greywolf - 4/17/2008 06:06 Only 20% of applied nutrient is available in application year. Depending on what your levels are at first.... as I said the U reports 20 - 50% MAY be able to be reduced. "Here", a normal build program via soil tests for 150 bu corn is a program of 120 - 50 - 75. Yes, 20% of the nutrient applied via a broadcast application is available to the crop in the year of application. The other 80% goes into the soils reserves and is released at a later date (I know that's an oversimplification, but it will suffice for this discussion). Banding increases the availability to approximately 50% -- that's where the "efficiency" comes into play -- but it also means that the other 50% goes into the soils reserves. So.... if you are only applying 50% of removal to begin with, that means only 25% of what the crop removes is being supplied by the banded fertilizer. The other 75% is coming from the soils reserves. My question to you is, how long do you expect the soil to be able to supply a sufficient amount of nutrients under this scenario? It is not a blanket statement broad spectrum. Nor is it a practice that can be followed from now till eternity. It does involve a higher level of management that from what I have seen, very few are willing to work at. OK, you admit that you will not be able to do this indefinitely. If that's the case, when do you expect you will have to go back to full rate nutrient applications? How will you know when it's time? Are you going to wait until yields start to drop off before hand, or do you have some other way to measure when that will be? | 
How do you guys soil sample in strip till?
