EC MN - Hour North of 'The Cities' | Neighbor of ours that has no-tilled the past 7 years or so has gone away from brodcasting P,K, and micros for corn and soybeans, and just uses his 2X2 dry on his planter (i.e. banding and band rate). His brother is an agronomist and usually does his rec's for him, but the grower knows just as much on fertilizer recs, just looks for another opinion. I would say he usually has the most consistent good crops for being no-till and banded fertilizer. I can only wish to do what he does with the equipment he has at hand.
I spoke with his brother this summer about going from our broadcast program to banded, and he said we would see a noticeable yield bump (approx 10%, maybe higher on cool,wet years) AND quite the fraction of a fertilizer bill that we do now. Granted, our soils and climate are a lot more conducive to producing better crops when having nutrients as close to the seed as possible for maximum uptake, but I believe we aren't the only growers in the world that have these types of conditions.
I feel that if you can band your fertilizer where roots will uptake the nutrients without having to "search" and allocate the same amount over a longer period of time, then the banded drop should be ahead, but you better have enough food so the crop won't run out of gas. With today's RTK technology one would be able to continually place nutrients in the same 'zone' year after year, thus creating a higher fertility area where the seed is placed, and where most of the nutrient uptake takes place during the growing season. Many air carts can be equpped for VRT application of dry fertilzers, which would also add to the possible profit of banding nutrients, and better stewardship of fertility on variable soils.
Just because one broadcasts doesn't guarantee that they won't 'suck the soil dry' of fertility. Be it banding or broadcasting, you should regularly soil test and make sure you are adding to whateve you may be removing, and if needed, then some (if it will help you into the future). |
Corn Residue Discussion Yesterday
