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| I've shown pictures of my rig on this forum many times. Small scale, I used my three point sprayer to provide regulated pressure, and put plow coulters with ammonium knives in the slots on the fertilizer bar of my 4 row 7000 pull behind planter. This was a load for the MF-135 and I had to add front weights, and then put only 35 gallons of 32% in the three point tank at a time. It didn't work the 135 hard, ran at 1600 rpm geared up, but with any more N in the tank, I'd have had to have steered only with the brakes and that doesn't lead to even guess rows. I filled fertilizer about 5 times as often as I filled seed. In that way it was SLOOOOW but the only pass across the field since I was notill. But the corn looked great all summer, didn't fire when the neighbor's corn fired and with my shortage of N still did quite well. The late season stalk nitrogen test came in 237 ppm which is on the low side indication I'd have seen a benefit from a bit more N.
My sprayer uses a 4.5 gpm FloJet pump. The only metal is in the spring of the pressure regulator (never did work good) and the stainless steel pressure gauge. So it handles 32% just fine. I use a needle valve to bypass from the pressure manifold to be the fine set for the pressure. I can't swear that sometimes I've had "32%" that only weighed 10.4# per gallon like it was 28% sold at a 32% price.
Had used a ground driven pump, I'd have been more accurate, because my constant pressure scheme demands the correct driving speed and somehow on the day of planting I remembered 4.2 when it should have been 4.7 so I ran out of 32% in my trailer mounted tank before I ran out of field and hod to go get more. Which tied up the trailer until I filled it again and sidedressed a couple months later.
Before this rig, I built a liquid applicator out of a IH 400 cyclo planter. I mounted that 65 gallon tank in place of the seed tank, and mounted a squeeze pump on the front step chain driven from the planter sprockets so I could shuffle sprockets to set the rate. I ran hoses to three row units on 60 inch centers (was planting with a 6 row cyclo 400 spiller those days). I had row units with closing disks and side gauge wheels so I took off the pressure wheels. The first time I used it, I put down my chosen supply of 32% and had enough in the tank to do 500' of that 6 row application left over. I figured the error at 3/4%, close enough for research work, much less farm work. The previous year I had rented a buggy from the elevator to put down MAP and its rate was about 40% off. So I bought more MAP than I wanted to, (but being stingy, it wasn't a harmful rate). Had I not waited until the corn was 4' tall, I'd have used the cyclo rig for side dressing again. As it was I dribbled the N on with rain in the forecast that rained it in without much loss. I still have that squeeze pump, and some spare hoses, but they come in sets of 6 and the ones on the pump are probably dying of age. I'm not planning on using it again. Its a Deere pump, made by Blue, but I made the backing plate because it came without one. I don't know about it pulsing, I just checked the over all rate. I found that I needed orifices at the ends of the hoses else while the rig was raised the hoses emptied and the grass where I turned around outside the field exploded and the first few feet back in the field were short changed until the hoses filled again.
As for rate with the planter, there are no guidelines that I've found. I planned 50, put down 60. My new tenant and I decided last spring that about 35% of the total N was about right for strip tilling. For sure the corn needs N when its small, but I don't think it needs the year's supply then, and having the year's supply in the ground exposes more to being washed down by heavy rains like the last two years. And my tenant is corn on corn so he puts down more N than I ever did. And might raise more corn, we'll see. I suspect for the best efficiency of N usage, its important to spoon feed several times. But for farming efficiency probably some with the planter and the rest sidedressed once is most effective. Then when going for N efficiency the choice of the hybrid is vital. And the Crows number I planted isn't shown in the Channel seed book by that same number. Might be there, but its hard to find out and since I've rented out the land, I've not tried to find out.
Gerald J. | |
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Nitrogen loss prevention
