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Coldwater, Michigan | Actually he is not!
I have posted results for several years when asked. I try not to say hey look at my product, isn't it great. However, I have shown the good and bad of some of the testing. I posted results from the Potassium Thio-Sulfate trials I did for a few years earlier tonight. Nothing works 100% of the time, and some products that are available are nothing more than snake oil. 6-24-6 can be a wonderful liquid fertilizer to use, and can show excellent results. Having said that I tested for a number of years against some 6-24-6 that was marketed by a large regional traditional fertilizer supplier that often had a hard time beating the no Starter treatment, and it cost you for the chance to find out about it.
If I was to kick farmers: it would be because so few actually yield check to see if they are getting results good, or bad. As said above, nothing wins 100%. As far as 10-34-0 is concerned, if you put it 2" x 2" you might as well broadcast your phosphorous and put your nitrogen beside the row. In my tests, 10-34-0 only won against the no starter treatment about 53% of the time in 88 trials. You do need to maintain your P levels at some point so broadcasting takes care of that. Use the N as your starter if you are going to put something beside the row.
In 144 trials with a good quality 6-24-6 vs the no starter treatment the 6-24-6 won 83% of the time, usually at around 8.2 BPA for an average. If you did head to head trails against 10-34-0 @ 15 Gallons vs 6-24-6 at 5 gallons, the 6-24-6 in the above mentioned 88 trials out yielded the 10-34-0 by about 2.4 BPA and didn't need as much fertilizer to do the job. If you take 15 gallons of 10-34-0 at 2002-3 prices vs 5 gallons 6-24-6 prices from then, the 6-24-6 only made you an extra $9.72 /acre after accounting for that cost from 2002-3. I haven't even tried to compare against 10-34-0 vs 6-24-6 for a couple of years because the prices of these commodities have changed so much and so fast it is impossible to keep track from one week to another. That is why I have left the $2.00 corn price on those plots. Anyone who is interested can get a price quote from a 10-34-0 supplier in their area, and a current price for a semi load from me, and make the comparison at today's corn price. Did you manage to sell your corn for a higher price than $2.00? I would hope so!
I am open to disclosing my prices on an individual basis because each of you has a different freight situation, and that affects the price whether you are in the eastern Corn Belt, or for that matter I have several customers in MN, ND, SD, Iowa, ILL, MO areas as well. Where you are affects the price I quote. But that gets beyond my point. You should be doing comparisons on your farm, because there is a lot of "BS" coming from even traditional suppliers. I am the one that used to be accused of selling "snake oil" by the traditional people I worked with for years. Have you ever wondered why you never see fertilizer dealers conducting fertilizer yield trials? They don't have a clue whether their program does anything other than to maintain the soil fertilizer levels. They know that their customers are receiving higher yields from their fields, but have no clue whether their fertilizer program is doing what it should. Some of the programs I see them selling everyday is more "snake oil" than I ever sold, and guess who pays the bill?
Dang, I didn't aim to go off like that! Good night!
Edited by Bill Moyer 2/29/2012 00:41
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liquid fertilizer
