Planting corn

[Erik Ks farmer]

Debating on what to do to get ready for next year for corn ground. Thinking about ripping bean ground and spreading dry fertilizer with nutrisphere or having NH2 custom applied. Any opinions?

 

[Anonymous-0]

A lot of fall applied NH3 in this area. In early fall they also use N-Serve. However I don't like fall applied N, too much potential for excessive loss. Suggest fall spreading dry which has a lower N content. Fall fertilizer we use always has some DAP or MAP as a base ingredient. These are relatively cheap compared to the alternatives having no N component, so N cost is negligible. Then put 30-40 lbs with the planter and side dress the remainder. Alternative is to spring apply NH3. Thought about skipping the sidedress and apply remainder of N as 28% stabilized with Nutrisphere-N, hopefully being able to spray both with the post-plant herbicide application. But haven't been convinced that Nutrisphere-N works that well yet. We don't normally do any fall tillage on bean ground. Usually a single field cultivator pass before planting, but this spring finally gave up and no-tilled when it remained too wet for a tillage pass. I wouldn't rip unless you seen some compaction problems. If convinced there is a problem, I would rip it an inch or more below the prevailing compaction layer.

 

[Erik Ks farmer]

Those are my thoughts as well, we saw a 15% increased yeild on ground with Nutrisphere N last year, that was spring applied. We do need to do some work on compaction and are planning to go no till possible this spring, and no later than 2011 planting season.