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Thumb of Michigan | Hi Bill and Ed
Bill, I've seen research that suggests yield improvements liquid vs dry- but I don't think they were as thorough as your plots. I personnally have no fond memories of dealing with dry at planting time. Auger breakage, nose bleeds, running for tarps, stones wedged in the planter augers, high Mn and Zn starters set up in high humidities. Nope, can't say as I miss that. Bill, you probably knew the local Sohigro guy here. Old Dunk Volk probably converted more guys to liquid than anyone I know of in Michigan. I always got a kick out of him when we first went to liquid. We didn't know if we wanted 10-34-00 or 8-25-3. He'd pound his fist on the table and almost yell about how he was POSITIVE that we'd get a responce from the K if we went to 8-25-3. Then he'd starting to pounding with the other fist that he'd never actually saw an advantage. Ever. But by golly, he still liked it. On the other hand, I don't remember anyone up here ever using just DAP or MAP on the planter. Along with micro's, a little K almost always paid.
For my definately unscientific example- I have 2 neighbors who are pretty intense with anything farming related. Try to beat each other to the field in the spring, zero weeds in the fields, etc. One was dry, one liquid. The dry guy told me a few years ago that they were planting the same varieties the same days next to each other doing some plots. They were doing this yearly with whatever crop it was they were planting in those fields that year. The dry guy said that almost always the liquid starter had earlier emergence. How much quicker, I don't know. An hour difference is a pretty big deal to these 2. The dry guy is now liquid anyway. He thought that corn was the biggest difference, but thought that some years sugar beets were coming up better with liquid starter. I don't know, just telling you what these guys think they saw.
Back to economics- I can't store dry ferts as cheap as I can liquids. Even though I'm in the midst of building a liquid containment, I think its still cheaper storage vs dry. At one time, dry storage would have been benificial to me just because I could store dry beans in the building short term. As we don't raise those anymore, its a moot point. We've never been able to justify NH 3 storage, and now I don't even know if we could build ammonia storage if we wanted to because of liability and insurance. As far as economics between dry and liquids, I don't think that the spread for us is very far apart based on nutrient value anymore based on cost to store and (for N) cost to apply. My cost to sidedress 28% N is so far below NH 3, I just don't see us ever going back to ammonia. But thats off the original topic.
I try not to bring up the starter on the planter topic anymore anywhere, too controversial in some circles- but you did bring it up so I'll comment! My theory is that the number one reason some have struggled with no-till in the corn belt is because of inappropriate fertilizer application methods. You and I are accustommed to and comfortable with a 2 x 2 (or a variation) of starter placement. We've been putting starter on with the planters up here since the late 40's or earlier. Every now and then, some up here trend away from doing that. The mass exodus to 22" rows was the last time it happened big here. And everybody got along fine for 2 or 3 years. Most got bit, some pretty badly. And then the pint is the same as a ton salesmen came through, and some got bit big again. Anyway, I think that theres way too much $ and time getting spent to apply fertilizer inefficiently in no-till situations with too many mixed results. I guess I just can't see what the huge resistance is out there to putting fert on when planting. This paragraph may bring a lot of people here posting a lot of reasons why it can't be done, but I've probably heard all of them already. I'm not a fertilizer expert by any means. All my kids are teenagers or older, so if you ask them I really don't know much of anything LOL. All I try to do is raise as many cheap bushels or pounds of stuff that I can, and in my mind no-tilling (especially) requires that a good share of the N requirement and most of the needed major nutrients need to be pretty close to the seed. There, now everybody go ahead and take a shot at me.
Ed- The 2 guys I refered too each have different situations than I do. The first guy has expanded fairly dramatically the last 15 years. Most of his "new" ground is rented from small dairy farmers when they retire. The rotations have been 10 or 15 years of alfalfa, followed by some silage corn. Then back to alfalfa. The only fertilizer applied on some of the farms has been what the cows pooped out. Thats been the deal for many years on some of the farms. Now I'm a big fan of manure, but I think it's asking too much on some of those farms. He's been pretty successful banding K as well as broadcasting if he has to. Most of the ground is in the way of developement, so a build up program is out of the question on most of the stuff. Most of the ground in that area is just over neutral.
Guy #2 has acuired land from some relatives who were in a wheat/dry bean/ sugar beet rotation. The relatives were infatuated with 8-32-16 dry fert. Used it on everything. In fact, I sold them fertilizer at one time. Didn't matter to them what the soil tests or removal rates of each crop were. Thats what they wanted. And I can't say it didn't work. The old boys are heading to Florida every winter right after they close deer camp up. They're pretty happy, so it must have worked. But the new guy is planting a lot of high K use crops now, so he's in a building mode. Broadcast in the fall, plus with the planter. Seems to be working for him OK. All his ground is 7.2 pH+, some of it approaching 8. | |
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liquid fertilizer vs dry
