how would you fertilize?

[Anonymous-0]

Hey folks. Time to fertilize the horse pastures and I'm not sure what to use. None of them have been fertilized (other than by the horses). All have fruit trees on them. Seems that everyone I ask here has a different idea. If location makes a difference, I'm in Germany. Plenty of rain and mild climate (hit 20 degrees F a couple of times this year). Mixed grass and no alfalfa.
With that situation, what mix would you folks use? Think I'd be better off if I could just show up with the mix I need and get the closest standard.

Thanks for any input.

Dave

 

[IaGary]

Here in Iowa USA most of us use just Nitrogen on grass pastures and hay.

Anywhere from 40 to 100 units per acre.

If we have clover or alfalfa then we add the Potash and Phosphate.

Gary

 

[john in la]

Here in the states we would take a sample of the soil to our local ag office for testing for about $7. By telling them what crop we want to grow they could then recomend a fertilizer blend for us to use.

Do you have a simular service in Germany????
If not with the price of fertilizer the test is well worth the cost even if you have to send it to a private lab.

 

[Anonymous-0]

(quoted from post at 05:50:01 04/10/08)
Do you have a simular service in Germany????
If not with the price of fertilizer the test is well worth the cost even if you have to send it to a private lab.

Yes, we do, all the ag stores offer it. I thought it was just for crops (language barrier I guess). I couldn't believe what fertilizer has done since I bought a bag 6 years ago (6 times the price). Somebody said to use lime nitrogen (translated from the German word), Is that just plain lime?

Thanks, Dave

 

[john in la]

Pasture and fruit trees are both crops. The test can be used to grow anyting from corn to a home garden to ortamental bushes in your front yard.

A soil test will tell you if you need lime and if you need to use regular ag lime or one with Magnesium added.
ag lime

 

[Texasmark]

Ample information to answer your question is available on the www.

The soil sample is the first step. It tells you what is stored in the soil. With high fertilizer prices, you can"t afford to guess anymore.

Then you determine what you want to plant. Plant consumption requirements are also available here (www).....sometimes by garden spots, or local ag and mech universities or fertilizer companies, or maybe a magazine or book. I use Eldorado chemical co. who I seem to recall is a sub of Cargill enterprises; a big outfit in the ag business.

They supply a very informative brochure providing information as to what part each primary ingredient and trace ingredients play in the development of the plant. As a matter of fact, they did my soil tests this year free of charge. Can"t beat a deal like that.

Growth is controlled by moisture, sunlight, and nutrients available and in a consumable state (for the plant)......limit any one of them and you will stop the crop production at the point that they run out. As they are depleted, the contents of your crop will suffer. Like the protein of your hay will test low or something like that requiring you to provide supplements (bag feed) to livestock to bring the protein content up to acceptable levels. Or, rather than getting 5 tons of forage per acre, you only get 2 and the quality will probably be low.

If you don"t return elements to the soil you will "mine" the elements from your soil and after a time you won"t be able to grow anything.

How do I know all this? I have been studying it for the past several years, especially the past 6 months in preparation for this year"s hay crop which will require some of that high priced fertilizer you mentioned.

On the plus side, the rule of thumb around here used to be 6:1. You get 6 times the crop improvement for 1 investment ($) in fertilizer. With the current situation that number probably will be more like 2-3:1. Additionally, since the harvesting equipment has to go over the field anyway, regardless of yield, it makes economic sense to have the better crop with the better yield per acre.

HTH

Mark

 

[cahess]

Soil test would be ideal way as others said however if stand looks even over field nothing like urea to make grass grow.