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Little River, TX | I do not think having a high pH &/or high CEC soil, is a disadvantage, nor is limited rainfall, but it is different from conventional wisdom !
Some time ago there was a spurt of people using Veris to vary the rate of nitrogen. I thought that would be a good idea. They used the magic machine between the tractor and the fertilizer tool bar.
I think this could be a big help. With our soil, roughly half of any nitrogen applied is available to the crop, this season. Plus up to half of the accumulated residual, or unavailable nitrogen, can be available to the crop. Most growers have enough residal nitrogen that this situation is never noticed.
Say we apply 100 lbs of N each season. This season our yield only removes 75 lbs so this 25 unused pounds is added to the 375 lbs of residual nitrogen. So far so good. Say though we have three bumper crops in a row. Each crop removing 135 lbs of nitrogen. In this example this is no problem, and the residal is depleted by 105 lbs. As long as the short crops as well as the extra yields are weather related it will all balance out over our lifetime.
In theory if we stop applying nitrogen, over a 5 year period the accumulated residual will become depleted. In practice a really good residual may be detectable for 20 years.
Now in the East Texas Sandy soils conventional wisdom has nitrogen playing out in 6 weeks. In practice, the grazing dairies can see in their milk tank levels the nitrogen is playing out after 3 weeks. (The milk tank is a more accurate and more sensitive measuring system than anything any laboratory has developed to date. | |
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Veris Soil Testing Experience?
