EC Nebraska | Farms With CASE - 3/10/2013 19:49
Not everyone is blessed with high OM soils. Here 160 will yield you between 200 and 80 bpa. Pretty coarse soils with little water holding capacity and low OM levels.
I agree, lighter, coarser, low OM soils certainly do need different management than heavier richer soils. But do you see much of a yield boost from just adding more N? Does 220 lb/acre N really yield more than 180 lb/acre on pretty coarse soils with little water holding capacity?
When you don't have the micronutrient reserve in the soil, that would seem like all the more need for a complete nutrition program and spoon feeding. Excess N may just be stimulating OM decomposition and burning off the reserves faster.
The field I mentioned upthread are 2.5-3.0 %OM. They were 2.0-2.5 %OM ten years ago. I'm slowly building OM with those N rates. (and P, S, Zn, Mn, etc) |
N rates on irrigated corn
