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NW Illinois | I guess I look at it differently on owned ground vs rented.
Rented, mining is when you remove X number of nutrients based off yield( by university guidelines) and apply Y amount and it's less then X took off. Soil test shouldn't be part of the equation. They can guide you where to best reapply the units within the field, but if total amount doesn't equal what was removed then you have mined it. Cover cropping maybe valid if there is a way outside of soil testing to prove nutrient additions. It doesn't count if all it does is brings nutrients deeper from the soil profile to the top and is then measured on a soil test.
32 years in retail, last 21 years in management/ownership with duel roles in sales during all those years, I would say in my community 95% of rental acres fit my defined measurement of mining. I'm not judging, I rent ground too and know the truth for myself. Most of my retail career renters have used retailer recs/soil tests to validate their fertilizing choices.
There is literally thousands of acres locally here that raised 250+ corn/70+ soybeans that only had potash applied this fall. Economically it was sound do to Phosphate price, but the likelihood that will get replaced in later year's applications is highly unlikely.
Owned ground, we call it the fertilizer bank account. Essentially sometimes you put money(fertilizer) in, sometimes your withdrawal more than you put in, and sometimes you gain interest(soil parent material provides). Goal is to keep the ground sound/productive. Sometimes it's a tax shelter if fertilizer is reasonably priced. Unfortunately we measure this more by soil testing, which I don't prefer due to the inaccuracies of testing itself. It's owned so do what's best for you, and no judgement is passed be me anyways. | |
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Can we agree on a definition of mining the soil?
