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Northeast, Nebraska | If you are getting 270 lbs from the manure, you definitely don't need anymore. You probably have a minimum of 30lbs in the soil already and if you have an organic matter over 3, you would be over applying. You can over apply nitrogen to a plant and cause a yield drag as well. Where I am at in Nebraska, I have OM at 3 and apply 200lbs of nitrogen. Usually have around 20 to 30 lbs in the soil every spring before I plant according to soil tests and my corn yields 250 to 330 bushels under irrigation. Unless you have low OM and CEC soil, nitrogen usually isn't your limiting yield factor. It is probably a tie up of something else. I've done nitrogen test strips in fields for years. I am currently running .6 to .7lbs of N per bushel. I have had strips down to .2 an .3 with 290 bushel corn. I am still trying to find the sweet spot, which takes years of replication. You'd be surprised to see that you can actually get a yield increase by reducing nitrogen applied. I have seen it more than once. One thing I have done after my trials is I have quit rowplacing nutrients and y dropping nitrogen and went back to broadcasting. Putting everything in narrow bands will concentrate too much salt into those areas and plants have a hard time getting that nutritional balance they need. It can be done but after a while you may hit a yield wall like I did. Biology plays a big part in getting nutrients into the plants and the biology isn't placed in strips, it is spread throughout all of the soil and not all biology can move on its own throughout the soil. A lot of it catches a ride when the roots come by. So when those roots or biology hit that band of salt, It can be too much for them. A good example of it would be if you are eating a steak and go to put some salt on it and the lid comes off.
It is better to have your salt spread out. If your roots aren't getting to it, you have a biology/soil health problem. If you have a soil health problem, you probably have a weed problem or your tissue and sap tests are coming back with deficiencies. You can foliar apply products to fix that and put a bandaid on it, but you are just putting a bandaid on it and you will have to keep putting it on until you can heal it back up again. There is no one right way to farm and you can get high yields by placing fertilizer by the plant but it is very expensive because you are doing all of the work and your soil is just there. Everyone should go online and get a Microbiometer testing kit. What it does is it will test your fungal/bacterial ratios. You want to be as close to 50/50 as you can. A lot of people are at a 10% fungal to 90%bacterial. That is way off balance. A guy I work with has a customer who when he first tested his soil was around that 10/90 ratio and he started building his fungal levels back up. This spring he came in at 46% fungal and 54% bacterial. He says the main differences he sees, he is able to kill his weeds a lot easier, he applies less fertilizer and has higher sap and tissue tests, he doesn't need to use fungicides anymore and isn't planning on using insecticides on his fields either unless something unexpected comes in. He has increased the brix levels in his plants to where a lot of insects can't feed on them because they can't digest the sugar.
Our fungal levels in our soils have really dropped due to tillage, and harmful chemicals. I was doing the same thing as everyone else. 2 passes of fungicide every season, deep tillage in the fall and tillage in the spring. My disease levels in my fields increased, weed pressure increased. Weeds are non mycorrhizal. Mycorrhiza are the good fungal spores in the soil along with others but their main purpose is to form a symbiotic relationship with your crops and it feeds from your plants and in return it gives the plant what it needs for nutrients. They can also help fight off nematodes, and other insect larvae and help deter the effects of corn rootworm feeding. When the mycorrhiza are growing on your roots, you increase the soil penetration strength from 300 psi to up to 1000 psi and they will help break free those tied up nutrients in your soil. Anything that competes or attacks the plants, the mycorrhiza will do its best to fight against it. Just google them and you will go down a wormhole of information on the internet. Sorry, I wasn't expecting to go this long, but I guess I just went off on a tangent. If you would like to follow what I am doing and why we are doing it, I am posting videos on youtube and tiktok. Just look up Mr. Snakeoil. | |
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Sidedress N after hog manure?
