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Rivers, MB | Am rethinking our fertilizing seeding options. Not for this year but for next year.
We farm in western MB.
Currently we are banding NH3/liquid blend in fall with narrow openers. Then seeding in spring w/ starter blend. I like opening the soil slightly in the fall because it warms up a little faster and isn't quite so mushy in a wet year. Also like that we are spreading out the work load so not everything happens in spring.
However, don't like the extra fuel spent and like having the option of changing crop plans and like the idea of seeding our crop (wheat, canola, peas, sunflowers) between the rows of the previous crops stubble.
Wanting input as to how you single pass seed/fert. and any dislikes about the system you are using.
I have a few biases. Am not convinced that NH3 will be cheaper than urea within a few years due to alot of safety rules here in Canada that will increase the NH3 cost. Am also concerned about seed safety w/ NH3 going down with the seed whether its a side band opener or mid row bander/shank in dry soils.
Don't like the cost of liquid. I have trouble seeing how it pays to switch to liquid. Any thoughts would be great though. Storage on farm is expensive and bulky and would like to be able to prebuy when price is right. Easy to come up with custom blend.
Leaves me with granular fertilizer. I like this idea because its easy to buy, store, transfer, haul with the equipment that we have. However, it would be difficult to make our own blends without our own blender. We would either need a monster air drill cart (don't like the cost of the new tanks!) or go to a tow between and a tow behind, urea in one cart and seed/starter fert in the other cart. Anyone doing that? Kind of like the idea of being able to fill 2 products at the same time w/ 2 carts as opposed to needing to fill one big cart that only has one auger on it.
Am not a fan of mid row banders. Am concerned about having all the Nitrogen 18-24" apart depending on what row spacing your seed openers are on. Also don't like the maintenance of a coulter compared to a shank.
I'm also concerned about filling efficiency. The farms in our area that one-pass seed/fertilize seem to spend alot of time filling their drill. Is that normal. Seems to really cut down on the ac/day that they can do.
Open to all comments and ideas. I am quite willing to reconsider any biases that I have or consider any other new ideas that you might have. I am also realizing that going to one pass will increase labor requirements in spring time which could be a bit of an issue.
Thanks in advance. Didn't know if this was a crop talk or machinery talk question. Sorry for long post.
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single pass seeding questions
