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| I can't say its a fear to not fear. Its real. The senator is up for reelection.
Perhaps I should describe these soils as black prairie loam. My farm is located 100' above a limestone layer and so far liming has had no effect on pH though in the past couple years pH has begun to rise but the only lime applied was 21 years ago. But beans grow poorly compared to other parts of the county. I gave up and rented to a continuous corn farmer. I suspect its calcereous too.
The evidence on the NH3 application is that it evaporates when the soil is warm as I understand it. That's not a rule applied in the spring, that's a rule applied in the fall expecting it to last till the next summer. There is no rule on soil temperature for the spring and side dressing applications. There is more than a little evidence that NH3 applied in the fall escapes even with the soil cool such as growing good corn on half the N applied partly with the planter and partly side dressed.
Up until two years ago, ISU said they found no responses to applications of S in Iowa. Since 2008 they have suddenly started finding significant crop responses, but now say they still can't find a correlation between soil tests and those responses. My tenant worked AMS into his strips last fall.
I remember some black Texas stuff from the couple years I lived in Allen Tx (north of Dallas). Too hard when dry to be penetrated, too sticky when wet to come off the shovel. Too shallow on the hill tops to allow deep tillage. Too hard to need footings in the soil, most buildings floated on a concrete slab, not being able to tell the different except by color from the dry stuff. Though the telephone company building a new exchange in Plano insisted it must have a basement and brought in dynamite experts to make the hole in the rocks a couple feet down.
I heard back then that 4 plow equipment in Iowa was rated at 2 plows in that stuff.
Gerald J. | |
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Gerald J you are addressing my greatest fear.
