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New farms and surprisingly good yields.
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NE Ridger
Posted 3/26/2017 16:19 (#5924242 - in reply to #5923264)
Subject: RE: Some got what I meant, Most missed my point.


EC Nebraska
trebfms - 3/26/2017 08:15

There is a farm. It is farmed poorly for 20 year, little fertilizer used . Lot of weeds. Now this guy retires. You rent farm.  Put fair amount of Fertilizer down( But you can afford to put enough to correct super low test on in 1 year)  So you still have a low testing field. You clean up the weed with a big herbicide bill.  At harvest time this field yield with best of what you have.  But still has low PH and low test P and K compared to the rest of your farm. So where did the high yield come from?? Was it from the biodiversity of the weeds covering the land for the last 20 years????? That is my ??




There is another possible factor that most are missing.

It's possible that under the previous farmer the soil had developed a biology that is very efficient at extracting and mobilizing soil nutrients. P & K are the largest quantity items, but that efficient soil biology is good at extracting micro nutrients as well. Now you take over and throw out a good shot of soluble P & K. The soil biology goes ape, rather like an algae bloom on Lake Erie. Very little fertilizer gets tied up in the soil that first year. You do a good job planting a crop and controlling weeds. That soil biology focuses on the crop roots (because there are no weed roots) and that crop sees tons of available nutrients. It yields great. Then, as a couple years go by, you keep the weeds under control and keep fertilizing the soil. The efficient soil biology dies off because there aren't hungry plant roots around to feed it. Nutrients tie up in the soil. You have to get the soil test levels up high enough to feed the crop with chemistry because there isn't enough biology around any more. Now it's just like the rest of your fields.

Where as if you had followed that first crop with a multi-species diverse cover crop you probably could have gotten just as good a crop yields with less fertilizer. ( some level less than your normal program but still higher than the previous farmers program) That diverse cover crop might be able to keep the efficient soil biology alive and kicking.





Edited by NE Ridger 3/26/2017 16:21
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