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Thumb of Michigan | Mark, you're explanation closely mirrors my experiance. I'm a big no-till/cover crop fan, I think the nutrient stratification aspects of no-till as well as the ability of many covers to "trap" excess nutrients kind of change the whole soil test and fertility studies done over the last 100 years. I think Matt H has some data addressing that, but I could be wrong. Maybe someone else. The soil biology aspects are really new in the big scheme of things. Jill Clapperton found the relationship between mycchorrizie(sp?) and soil health. I think theres lots more to come.
We've been banding a starter with the planter for at least 50 years. In my world its pretty cool at planting, and more times than not I get a response from doing that. Probably not every year, but often enough to keep doing it. Most of our soils test high to very high on P, so really not much of a need to broadcast P. The starter seems to be enough P applied. We've been able to get by broadcasting K every 3 years or so, and I attribute that to stratification upwards of otherwise unavailable K. Micro's are my biggest struggle some years, N P and K aren't that big of a deal. | |
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Reduced Rates of Fertilizer - In reference to Ron's posts
