Posted by paul on January 22, 2016 at 20:23:54 from (66.44.132.180):
In Reply to: Where Do I Start? posted by Bryce Frazier on January 22, 2016 at 16:55:53:
The 5 levels of fertilizer:
1. Get your basics right. Fix your ph, then add P and K to what is a moderate to above average level for what your soils can handle. Here you want to use the cheapest types (granular, or manure if you can get it) and you will use lots of it. A couple lbs or gallons of some liquid spray will make your crop look nice for 2 weeks, and do -nothing- for your yields, but it will be a spendy fertilizer.
2. Banding fertilizer on the rows (after step 1) allows you to use perhaps 1/3 less fertilizer and still get good yields. This super rich band of fertilizer 2 inches to the side of your seed allows more feet to be released to the crop this year, so you can get by with less. Clearly this is aimed at row crops more than wheat or small grains. This banding can help if you have really poor soils, but you really want to be doing step one also to get poor soils built up to a good average....
3. Starter or pop up fertilizers, often liquids, are in small quantities and help get the crop off to a quick start, feed minor deficiencies. These tend to be expensive for what you get, and some years will help, other years might not do a lot. Depends on the weather and timing of planting and such. This will not ever be enough fertilizer to grow a crop on, it does not make up for lack of fert in your soils. It just helps fill in very minor gaps.
4. Biologicals, these are pretty new and used to be snake oils, but a few of them help your soils and your crop get together and make use of what is in the ground. In theory your soil has thousands of lbs of fertilizer in it, just tied up in forms that your crop roots can't get to. These things help that process. Some do well with them, some don't get anything out of them. I think there is a ways to go before these work for everyone....
5. Over the top sprays, foliar feeding. These can be well worth the effort on high dollar crops. Garden stuff, herbs, flowers, stuff that needs to look perfect, is worth a mint per acre. Takes multiple applications, testing, feed a tiny bit of stuff to the plants when needed. Typically corn, wheat, beans are not worth enough for these to pay. They are very spendy, and offer a very very low actual amount of fertilizer. These spoon feed small doses of expensive fertilizer to crops already growing on good well fertilized dirt.
Do the first 3 steps. Study up on #4, so when they get better we can use them.
Be careful of anyone who tries to sell you #5 for a common commodity grain crop. And number 5 will never never ever make up for skipping the first 3 steps, you need stuff right before getting to the last 2 options.
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