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NC KS | Liquid is cheaper than you think and here is why. You recently upgraded sprayers. I hope you got automatic section control on it as that is the fastest pay back of all of precision ag. Running liquid through your sprayer with auto section control means fields that are 80 acres gets 80 acres of liquid applied at the rate you choose to do and can be changed very rapidly going through the field and is very evenly applied (use some type of streamer or bubble tips $5-7 per tip). Your NH3 rig without section control probably doubles up enough to apply N on 85-90 acres depending upon the shape of the fields. You buy your NH3 at full retail and tanks have to be filled at Coop location but you might be getting delivery. Liquid N can be bought in semi load quantities and delivered to the retailer's cone bottom tanks at a location of your choosing and be moved quickly. I haven't looked at board prices of any fertilizer locally but would assume semi load quantities are $40 a ton cheaper than posted prices. Is your time worth anything? Definitely takes more time to put the NH3 in the ground but maybe you don't have anything else to do. Considerably less fuel also.
I understand the draw of cheaper NH3. I have seen lots of people spend a lot of money to put NH3 on with a low disturbance setup. The ultra low disturbance setups 20 years ago were very high wear and didn't seal very well. I have seen some cheap setups and the farmers continue to use them but they are bouncing over 1" indentations from the knife track. Must not bother them very much. Deere and Great Plains make coulter systems that are very pricey and might work good. I have not seen them in action. Takes a lot of acres to pay for them with the savings though.
Urea would be my last choice. I applied it faithfully for several years with a spinner spreader. I didn't like fertilizing the road and the neighbors on the first pass. No section control so it was all on or all off. Urea is very unstable and easy to lose. I learned that the hard way a couple of times. Urea on soybean stubble can simply blow away in the high winds we have at times. I applied some on a heavy frost and it warmed up that day. Corn growing in that field that summer was N deficient until I applied more N even though it had plenty as urea. I would not apply it without Agrotain. Unless you can rig up an auger to apply the Agrotain, you would have to pick the urea up at retailer's location so he can blend it for you. Kinda ruins the semi load idea at the farm. Urea and liquid are very close in price most of the time. Half of the liquid is very stable and can't be easily lost. The other half I would protect with Agrotain.
Your money and your choice-this is just my opinion learned at the school of hard knocks. | |
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true no tillers
