Dan,

One of the advantages to making strips in the spring is that many of our customers apply fertilizer combinations with the Pluribus unit that eliminate the need to have starter fertilizer on the planter.

This way, when it is time to plant you do just that: put seed in the hoppers and plant corn. If applying dry fertilizer it is uniformly mixed through the strip cross section and usually functions like starter, especially after a few days in contact with moist soil.

Personally I apply all my N for corn as 32-35 gal/a of 28% liquid put down in a band behind the LH coulter. The 28 ends up about 3-4" to the side of the strip centerline and about 5" below the soil surface, or roughly 3x3 from the seed. A safe distance. I grenerally plant into these test strips the next day.

In this all-liquid system, a starter such as 10-34-0 can be dropped in the center ahead of the coulters. This ends up being thoroughly mixed thru the strip cross section and lets you put enough down to do some good (say 12-15 gal/a) with no danger of harming the seed or germination. We have a separate simple little stainless tube to do this.

IF using spring anhydrous, as pictured above, for all N, I think most customers would at the same time apply about 12 gal of 10-34-0 or similar (some add micros) through this center tube and you should be good to go in a few days with no fertilizer on the planter.

I appreciate the offer of the field - we have a couple existing customers who are spring strip tilling dry P, K & part of their N as urea then side dressing the balance of the N as NH3 due to cost. These folks would like to go to a combination dry P & K + all N as NH3 in the strip just ahead of the planter. The NH3 kit looks like it will be a fairly minor change to their current Pluribus units so I think we will run there first. We may have some folks try it this fall in strips into bean stubble however...we will have to see just how much interest there is.

We have really been seeing more and more reasons to strip till into wheat stubble in late summer or fall, it is amazing how much moisture is held in that wheat stubble. We recommend strip tilling into corn stalks in the spring. Long story there. In bean stubble, you can strip till into bean stubble in the fall OR spring. I like spring strips in bean stubble. We'll have to see where the NH3 fits in to those systems. As always, jmho.

Jim at Dawn