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| Reports on this forum tend to hint that pop ups show in early corn growth and greenup. In northern locations and wet late springs that fast beginning may show all summer. Its harder to prove yield or dryness at harvest despite the better early appearance. Its harder to separate the effects of pop up fertilizer from early planting without a late frost. At least one western Illinois farmer consistently reported that decades of side by side pop up showed nothing at harvest.
I like getting my P and K down just before planting and applying 40 to 50% of my N with the planter off the row a couple inches and side dressing the rest. More nutrients at planting than pop up but not against the seed.
My tenant works AMS, P and K into the strips with strip till machinery in the fall and works more N into the strip in the spring pass, the side dresses to finish with the corn a foot or so tall. More nutrition than a popup but using conventional sources that cost less than a special safe in the furrow popup. And the crop response to the split N application gets more corn per pound of N. Spring and side dressed may be urea or 32% depending on price and availability. Less N leaches because most of the N isn't in the soil until planting.
Gerald J. | |
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Pop-up fertilizer
