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NE Iowa | There are a lot of N programs I'd like to try but haven't for several reasons. Basically every field I farm is planted on the contour and full of point rows. Average field size is probably 5 acres. Some fields have slopes over 30% and 15% is quite common. Would love to sidedress or get into strip till but the terrain makes it tough. Strictly no-till and have started using cover crops after beans and before corn so that makes anhydrous pretty tough. Don't like safety issues of anhydrous and have concerns of roughness and erosion potential that an anhydrous knife leaves. So that leaves me with N applied on the surface. Before the days of additives I was pretty goot at timing urea applications right before a rain. Been using Agrotain for a long time now to reduce the risk of volitilization. All urea with Agrotain applied a couple weeks ahead of planting was the norm for quite a while. Went to half urea preplant and half as 28% treated with Agrotain Plus applied with herbicide with the planter. That seemed to help keep the N around a little longer but I hated applying the 28% with the planter. Now I'm trying the DAP and 100# of urea a couple weeks before planting. Then having the rest of the urea applied post planting and right before emergence with a floater truck. This will get me as close to sidedress as possible without really being sidedress. Have considered ESN but worried about it floating downhill in a big rain. Also thought about topdressing treated urea after emergence with a cart on 60" centers but dog-tracking down the hill would slaughter a lot of corn. Playing with a difficult set of circumstances that is quite different then what most people face. Just a small part time farmer so hard to justify a bunch of fertilizer related equipment also. Just trying to make the most with what I've got. | |
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Sulfur fertilization options?
