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Can i get away from sidedressing corn?
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Gerald J.
Posted 9/30/2014 21:33 (#4102057 - in reply to #4101741)
Subject: RE: Can i get away from sidedressing corn?



There may be some soils that hold N really well and I know that sandy soils don't hold it hardly at all. In about 20 years of crops my best corn came from putting down 11 pounds of N as MAP right before planting, notilling the corn while applying 60 pounds of N with my three point sprayer and flat coulter openers with thin ammonia knives offset 2-1/4" from the rows, then side dressing when the corn was about 4 feet tall. I used weighted drop tubes after I broke my coulter frame that wasn't strong enough to lift the sprayer filled with 32%. I side dressed 40 pounds of N (as 32%). Where the leaves did pick up the drop tubes (every other row, 60" centers for 30" rows) and the end of the tube rode up over the leaf there was a burn streak less than a half inch wide. Yield dried was 173.2, that was in 2007. In the neighboring fields with mostly fall applied NH3, the lower leaves fired in August and mine stayed green several weeks longer, but eventually when the corn was about 15% the stalks started giving way. My tenant didn't beat that yield even with a split application of nearly twice that amount of N in strip till until his third corn year. Choice of seed was crucial and like having high organic matter contributed to the yield with so little N, 111 pounds total.

I know split applications with one sidedressing trip on my ground improves N efficiency. I suspect that the total N can be reduced more if its applied more times, but I'm not convinced more than one sidedress trip will pay, that the saving in N will not cover the cost of an added application or two. I know of no experiments in that direction.

For at least a half century around here its been SOP to apply manure and/or NH3 in the fall and to not sidedress. That practice is considered by eco types to contribute considerably to the dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico. But its still common. With enough N applied it does work, the big question is whether its good for the runoff, the environment, and the bottom line. With all the hog houses in this county fall application of manure will probably continue a long time because after the honey wagons pack the fields they need a freeze thaw cycle to let the corn come up and I can see places in the field across the road where the honey wagon either packed the soil tight or missed the N application and in those spots the corn is knee high NOW.

Gerald J.
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