Boone & Crockett - 1/17/2019 09:01
KDD - 1/17/2019 08:09
I agree with Ron on this one.
Yes, you may be able to cut rates on high-testing fields with no yield loss....for a few years. But the crop is going to remove what it uses whether banded or broadcast. If you cut rates below crop removal rates, you are depleting the soil no matter how you cut it.
I agree that the plant roots do not magically know where you placed your fertilizer. Neither do they grow only in the band. They will take up nutrients from more than just a banded soil profile.
The whole idea that banding takes less fertilizer is, in the long run, bull hockey. And any "efficiency" theory is more than offset by the equipment investment, maintenance, labor, and logistics of running a banding operation.
I don’t know why the concept is so hard to grasp? Nowhere are they suggesting a single pound less than removal rate. But the same removal rate in a 6-8” inch band is going to be multiple times more concentrated than the same rate broadcast. What is so hard to understand about that?