Corn300 - 3/21/2011 22:26 hey kdd, I must respectfully disagree. What happens to much of the nutrients that the plant takes up? Does it go away when you harvest the ear? Assuming that you don't cut silage and you manage your residue properly you get that back to start building your soil levels. The more nutrients the plant is able to take up via row placement and/or banding (as opposed to broadcast) the healthier the plant. After harvest when the residue is reincorporated you will build your levels faster than a traditional dry broadcast system alone. The fertilizer handbook says that you should expect to get back 20% of what you put out in uptake the first, and 1% per year thereafter with dry broadcast. That's not a super great ROI. I can find you the exact page number on that if you want. Please know that I'm not saying that you should never use dry... some soil tests may absolutely call for that, but don't think that if you're NOT using dry you can't build your soil tests. As greywolf pointed out a few posts ago it depends on how your managing your soil, soil, residue, and plant nutrition.