Fertilizing for No-Till Wheat....need your opinions!

[Jonathan Dansel]

Okay, we are new to no-tilling wheat...I'm tired of losing sleep over what to do for a fertilizer program...I want to put on my P and micro nutrients in furrow with my HD Great plains drill, then spread my N dry in the winter to minimize my loss to volitalization, get on about 75% of my N this way and then top dress the remaining N in the spring after i can judge potential of the crop to see if it is worth it.  My reasons for dry....VERY heave residue in these fields, which is exactly what you want with no-till.  I still have a lot of wheat stubble from '09 believe it or not, it was a solid mat out there last year about 2.5" thick laying flat (90 bu. what crop) and then we have 140 bu. corn residue on top of that from this past year....in the past we have jetted on our liquid with our sprayer in the late summer before we plant and incorporate it with the fallow master...i don't feel this is an option because when there is 75-80% of thick residue coverage on the field i think there will be a lot of tie-up doing it that way.  My father-in-law hates dry because he thinks you are losing too much to the atmosphere.  However, i have been told if i spread it in like December-February there will be very little loss and if we get some snow this winter it should push it down good.  We have sub and residue out the wazoo and i don't want to make my first attemt at no-till wheat a flop and prove my father-in-law right...i had to convince him to not hook up the sweeps and go undercut it here a month ago...i think it would have been a huge mistake to disturb our solid mat of material out there. Ten days after a rain you can go out in the field and go to a spot with no residue and it has dried out and crusted about 3/4" deep, then you move the corn and wheat stubble residue and it is black mud underneath it....enough to convince me what we need to be chem fallowing it.  He would like to pull a 42' liquid coulter applicator over it and put in in the ground on 15" centers...i think that would be a great way too but I do not want to disturb our residue at all and go chopping things up out there.  So, after hearing my case, if you have any suggestions, ideas, or want to tell me about your experiences let me know...i'm into learning. Thanks!

[Jonathan Dansel]

WHEAT crop, not a what crop!  didn't get it edited in time, sorry

 

[Abram V]

Spread dry fertilizer out there. What I have always heard for a rule with Urea is 75, 75. Meaning you don't want it out there if the temp is over 75 degrees and you have over 75% humidity. I've been spreading on my fertilizer for a while and have had no problems. I'm from ND so I have a little different circumstances (I primarily grow spring wheat), I just try to do it before it is supposed to rain, so the rain takes it in, but snow will do the same thing.

[Kaiser Farms]

wow this is weird i was just going to ask the same question. I we have been throwing that idea of spreading the N out in late november early December. We are going to run about 20 lbs of 11-52-0 as a starter when we plant. My other idea was to use streamers on milo ground and soybean ground because we have a spray and wont have to pay the coop to spread it for us. will we lose our 28-0-0 to volitatation or do we need to wait till it gets cooler?

[Nick]

Jonathan, the bigger question I have is: How do you raise great wheat and not just great wheat stubble?

[Jonathan Dansel]

Is this a trick question??? Are you stating a question in general or asking me personally?  If it is in reference to the 90 bu. wheat i promise that is not the norm around here....i was told by many farmers (including dad-in-law) to enjoy it cause you will probably never see those yeilds on dryland in the rest of your life time!  It might as well have been irrigated, it never quit raining that year...man it was alot of fun.  Let me know exactly what you mean.

[Nick]

No, its not....We also cut up to 100 bushel on our dry land fields last year, but have a hard time to average half of that on our irrigated ground every year with lots more fertilizer and water....when you cut the irrigated it looks like 100 bushel wheat in the field, but not in the bin....

[jel]

Nick,

Is the residue decaying ? No, then you will always grow great stocks and poor wheat. The soil is a living thing, the organisms called Actinomyces decay cellulose and, if you've been using burned down no-till, you may have just killed them off. Think of all the nitrogen and other food you're missing by having dead soil.

 

As far as fertilizer applications go, there are 105 pairs of combinations. I don't believe I, or anyone else, has really figured them out yet. Ideas? Yes. Mastery? Not even close. 

 

Joe

[pooboynotiller]

Ok... what do ya do if the dribble is not decaying or taking 4-6 months to be gone? Here it is so hot during windy during the summer we try to leave as much as possible standing to shade the ground. Im on a very slow learning curve with this notill business

[jel]

It starts (or should start) decaying primarily in the Fall, producing compost. That shades your ground, even in hot weather, but also provides nutrients that the plant takes up in the later growing season. Having residue on the ground, without it decaying, is just like putting woodchips out there. Think of your soil as a living, changing organism - because that's -precisely- what it is and too many people forget that. It's not just there to prop up the plant - it's the basis from where, literally, all life is derived. Treat your soil well and it'll treat you well in return. (Another way to think of it - you may not see (on a normal basis) or understand the inner-workings of your body but you take care of them, right? Same deal - the soil is the organism providing many of the same necessities for growth/life that you would expect of your body.)

 

People see a rock and think "inorganic and dead" but soil is not the same deal. It is a complex infrastructure full of size-reduced minerals, micro-organisms, larger life forms, etc. - more complex than any city if you were to scale it to size.

[Nick]

Jo, I understand your theory, but any residue needs moisture to decay, which we have not had in almost 12 months. No-till has improved our organic matter percentage in the last few years over 100% on some fields. On our dry land wheat I think we out yield any neighbor with conventional tillage.

 

It is our irrigated ground that we need to improve, and maybe more conventional tillage is the answer there, I dont know, we will have to see. There are several neighbors who do wheat the conventional way, and they didn't cut much more either....

[jel]

Nick,

If you put 100 tons of sawdust on your field, I bet your organic matter would go up too.

That would be a really dumb thing to do though, IMO! 

I ask, in corn no-till is the stubble standing the next year? If so there is little if any bio activity I have seen corn stubble that could puncture a tire ! 

All living things need water, we as humans are not able to control that, well "better living through chemistry " 

I just ask you to think as a farmer, not a commodities trader, but as a farmer that knows his soil himself.

[Nick]

If we get a wet winter, there is very little corn stalks left in the spring when we plant or strip-till the ground. We also do use manure on several fields. When the winter is dry there is a lot of stalks left.