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| So I've been putting in a small 5 acre FFA school plot every year, and the plot rarely gets any P and K applied, and it's been this way for a long time, decades.
This year it avg. about 75 bu. beans, last year it avg. about 235 bu. corn. Not great, but not bad in comp to surrounding acres in the neighborhood.
Skipping P and K a year or 2 or 3 or 4 or 5, etc. doesn't scare me much.
Also have a 4 acre hard to get to field that hasn't had any P or K applied for decades. Maybe it should be in CRP, and it has been before, as it's pretty severe sloped, but a short slope below a terrace that doesn't erode with cover crops and no-till. Anyway, this year it was in beans. Combine can hold close to 250 bu., but knew I couldn't go down there just once, and if you like to spill beans over the top, this field is for you, so pulled out with JD combine after the back window was covered up for a little while, so plus 120 bu., then had more than that the 2nd time down there with combine to finish the 4 acres, and left some beans for wildlife enhancement per CSP contract. That's about what it does consistently, with the corn years usually in the low 200 where the yield takes a bit of a hit compared to rest of farm, but there's some profit down there with the low input approach, and no, I would never subject an airplane guy to try and spray fung. down there in the cluster where the trees grow kinda tall, which this skinny field has next to it, especially on the bottom side bordering a creek, lol.
If there's a point here, it's that some of you might be surprised what you can raise w/o P and K for a while, at least in the I states, well, not sure about Idaho.
That said, I did have P and K applied on the acres preceding corn like usual minus the 4 acres this fall, but at a lower rate than normal and at a lower price locked in than now. | |
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Fertilizer price explanation from NCGA CEO
