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Central Missouri | There was a discussion on here recently about the Haney test and that the fertilizer recommendations that Haney is putting out are not valid because they are not calibrated or peer reviewed.
Having sat through two very good presentations at the nntc yesterday by people that are using the Haney test I would ask many to open their minds to the possibilities. There have been a couple of really good points outlined by the users. Both users are very heavy Users of covercrops.
People who are the most successful with covercrops have a few things in common. They think outside of the box. They are integrating livestock into their operations. They are using covercrops in place of a lot of commercial fertilizer. They use multi species covercrops mixes because different root exudates from different covercrops make different soil nutrients available to their crops. They supplement nitrogen in their corn crop.
Now to the Haney test, and I will fully admit I don’t know a lot about it but it gives you an idea of how well your soil is making nutrients available to your crop. Depending on where your soil is on the scale gives you an idea of soil availability of nutrients which gives an idea on how much you can reduce commercial fertilizer applications and grow a more profitable crop. Not necessarily a higher yielding crop than the calibrated university recommendations but a more profitable crop.
One of the presenters, a farmer, made an excellent point. The university recommendations that are calibrated and peer reviewed are quite good if you are in a normal tillage or no tillage crop program but they are not calibrated if you are in an intensive multi species covercrops program with or without livestock because they don’t take into account what your soil livestock are doing.
The university calibrated peer reviewed recommendations way under estimate the amount of plant available nutrients that the correct high intensive covercrop blends make available to the crop. Only a very small percentage of notillage intensive long term multi species covercroppers have this thing figured out but the ones that do are making excellent use of the Haney test and are using it to dramatically reduce commercial fertilizer and are raising crops more profitably because of it.
Covercrops are in their infancy. They are not a fad. They will change the landscape of farming over the next 30 years. Don’t conserve your soil rejuvenate it. Jmo | |
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Haney Test
