Where Lewis and Clark finished the rum | David - Are you suggesting that we only need a protein monitor? Hmm, as the user of both yield and protein monitors in hard wheat production, I find that I need both. The yield monitor gives absolute, (and relative) productivity within a field/farm, and the protein monitor lets us know whether or not the wheat was "well fed".. Methinks that if one had only a protein monitor, one would put extra N where the RESPONSE to that N is poor, and in some cases much poorer than areas of the field that have better potential response to N. As an example, I've found some areas of our farm are both low yielding AND low in protein, which with a protein only stategy, one might add extra N to, to have them considered "well fed", but alas, there appears to be little response to additional N in those areas is pretty darned poor - as determined by adding extra N and then measuring both yield and protein.
Conversely, there are regions of the farm where yields are moderate to high, and have low, adequate or high protein and I use the yield information to then decide how much N to add to moderate to high yielding areas with lower protein, and how much to subtract from areas of high protein. Measuring local N response (as measured in both yield and protein in micro plots) helps me determine how I'm doing.
Now Gary drives his decisions on SOIL - I use that too. Just as an example - I'm actually taking N away from the lower yielding and lower protein soils, largely because I believe the soil just can't support a higher yield - shallow, poor water holding etc., but where N would be added with a protein only strategy.
Just did an interesting little project with yield and moisture, for a friend, using harvest moisture as a surrogate for protein, so where yields were high AND moisture was in the higher range, one might soil test thinking about using more N, as yield was probably not limited my water. Versus medium to low yielding areas that were really dry at harvest - probably ran out of water. Now it would be really useful to have protein info there, but we didn't.
Just my 2 cents. |
Teach me about GPS yield mapping
