BACKGROUND AND A LITTLE RANT

When you say the word “fertilizer” people who aren’t familiar with agriculture often think it means something dangerous or unnatural.  For that reason, I like to refer to fertilizer as what it really is: plant food.  On my farm, my long-term goal is to leave the land in better condition for the next generation than it was when I started farming.  This should be easy on the Blank Slate because the land was in terrible condition to begin with (erosion, low fertility, low organic matter, I’d better stop the list before I get too depressed).

One of the big things I’m trying to learn this year is the correlation between plant population (how many seeds per acre I plant) and plant fertility needs.  When I talk to other farmers about how much fertilizer to apply to their fields it all comes back to what kind of yield level they anticipate being at.  If you’re raising 200 bushel corn, the USDA estimates your crop will remove from the soil 180 pounds of nitrogen, 76 pounds of Phosphorus, and 60 pounds of Potassium, along with smaller amounts of all the other essential nutrients.  Those numbers are just for the nutrients that leave the field when you haul away the grain.  The crop actually needs to take in even more nutrients to grow a healthy root system and stalk that will stand until harvest and support and develop the ears of corn.

In my case, I applied fertility for a 170 bushel yield goal last year and raised only 150 bushels of corn (thanks to being blessed with two shots of hail in July).  Farmers never really have any idea of what yield will be other than guessing by previous history of that field and the knowledge of what management practices they intend to apply this year.  In year three of the Blank Slate project, I’m planning for 180 bushels per acre and will feed the crop accordingly.

THE EXPERIMENT – Please try this at home

1. I’m trying a couple different plant populations trying to learn what the optimum plant density per acre is for maximum yield on the Blank Slate.

2. With those plant populations I’m also trying to learn how to feed the crop just right.  If you don’t add more plant food when you add more plants, you end up with spindly little stalks that tend to fall over in the wind when there’s a great big ear of corn hanging 5 feet off the ground on each stalk.

3. I’m trying higher rates of nitrogen fertilizer on some of the plots to better evaluate my other nutrient applications.  I’ve experimented with higher rates of phosphorus, potassium, and micronutrients in the past.  High rates of those nutrients didn’t always help me much because I ran out of something else first.

I’m really excited about the potential of this year’s crop.  I’m also working on getting my kids a little more involved this summer which should be interesting and fun.  Stay tuned.

Some people think a field like this is ugly. Can you believe that? I love seeing last year’s stalks in my field. It immediately gets me thinking about my responsibility to my soil and to leave my field in better shape than when I got it. It makes me think about how I’m feeding my crop and the importance of how I manage crop residues in my field. The nutrients that those stalks hold and the value they have in stopping soil erosion are not to be overlooked. I love farming, and I love doing my best every day to do it the right way.

Speaking of doing things right, we barely got the crop in. We got rained out leaving the field. As a result, we did not get the nitrogen fertilizer and pre-emerge herbicide on. We caught a break in the weather and were blessed with an almost perfectly still day to get those things applied a week after we planted. The crop was still 1/2 to 3/4 inch below the soil surface and things worked out very well. I may go into greater detail about that application on a future post.

COMPLAINER ALERT!!! One challenge that we’re facing on this field is the fact that we have terraces and some crazy terrain that we’re trying to do strip tillage in. First of all, you have to drive just perfect (maybe even beyond perfect) to do the strips just right. It’s nearly impossible to have your strip tillage implement follow the terrain and stay exactly where you want. Then when you’re trying to plant, there’s residue right where you don’t want it to be. I’m not trying to be a complainer here. I’m merely trying to explain the difficulty there is in doing the job “just right” throughout the entire field. One problem you can see in this picture. Can you identify it?

The picture looks a little different than my recollection of how things looked yesterday, but one thing is 100% accurate. The seed depth and placement is not perfect. Notice how a couple plants appear to have an extra leaf. That means they emerged from the soil perhaps a day or maybe even more ahead of the smaller plants. When I dug up these plants I noticed the planting depth varying from 1 inch (on only a few plants) to 2.5 inches (again, on only a few plants). Most of the planting depths throughout the field were in the 1.5 inch to 2.0 inch range, which is ideal. However, in a cooler spring like this one has been up to this point a half inch can make a big difference in emergence. When plants emerge evenly, they compete equally for water and nutrients. When there’s a big bully on the block, in this case a corn plant that’s 1 or 2 leaf stages ahead of its neighbor, the big bully gets a majority of the nourishment. The smaller plants never amount to anything and become like weeds in your field. One thing for sure we need to change for next year is our residue managers on the front of our planter. They simply are not effective at pushing residue sufficiently out of the way for us to maximize our potential in a minimum tillage situation.

Instead of focusing on what isn’t perfect, I’d prefer to find something to be positive about. It’s wetter now than when we planted, so I feel fortunate that we pushed hard to get into the field when we did. Otherwise, it would still be unplanted and the decisions would get that much tougher.

Overall, I’m excited about the potential of this crop and look forward to making as many correct decisions as possible to help preserve that potential throughout this growing season.

How’s your crop coming? I hope you’re getting things in the ground and having some fun watching it grow!