how much fertilizer to put on dryland wheat

[pooboynotiller]

i am from western oklahoma raising no'till dryland wheat. I am wondering what types of practices other places use as far as putting fertilizer on winter wheat. I would also like to know the different practices people use. I am currently running 1560 jd drills on 7.5 spacing with pro-germ starter fertilizer which is 9 34 9 at 6 gpa. We have had less than 2 inches of rain since october. Our wheat looks horrible as you can imagine. I topdressed with 125 # of dry 46 0 0. How much fertilizer can wheat stand without burning it up, i know it has to rain more than 2 inches on a crop. This last week we have had a little over 2 inch3 different rains...WOOOHOOO!!! The good Lord hasn't forgotten us!!! Thank You for your advice and input

[Brian Grossman]

We have been doing no-till wheat in my area since the late 80s and have always been a pretty big fan of it. We are not a true 100% no-till since we run concords rather than a true no-till but the reason behind this is like you we get very little rain. Even though the concords do disturb the soil to some extent we are able to apply NH3 a lot easier then with a no-till. We apply 120lbs of 11-36-9-3 and 130lbs of NH3. Yields have always been above the regional average with good protein and test weight however it does cost a lot so when we have a severe drought we have to cut expenses in other areas since the fertilizer is already down. Applying urea without incorporating it into the soil will result in a huge loss of nitrogen to the atmosphere so I would not recommend that, and an area farmer applies 28% through his sprayer but we have been noticing severe plant tissue burns so we have stayed away from that practice. If you are interested in more add me and we can chat more.

[James Kelly]

spray 32% 60 pounds in March and another 60 pounds 4 to 5 weeks later... averaged 90 bu/ac :) last year....7.5 row spacing

[Jim Cooper]

I like the Univ Of Nebraska calculator that throws N price and Wheat price in the mix.
http://soilfertility.unl.edu/materials%20to%20include/winter%20wheat%20fertilizer%20calculator%20spreadsheet.xls
We are 100% notil on our dryland in sw NE. I use 3-7 gal of 10-34-0 with the drill then spray on 30-0-0-3 in the spring according to soil tests which was 15-20 gallon this year. We had good phos levels and my application equipment on the drill works well at 7 gallon so I cut the 10-34-0 about half with 32 last fall. We probably had high enough levels to skip that high priced 10-34 last fall but just couldn't make myself go without so we just cut back.

[Michael]

First off let me congratulate you on going no-till. That is the first right step you are taking. On our no-till we run 30 pounds of 32% nitrogen with a colter cart before we drill. Then we topdress about 65 pounds of 32% on in the spring with our sprayer.. We usually get yields of 50-70 bu/ac. If you use dry, I would look into getting a air drill so you can put it with the seed....too much of dry is lost to the atmosphere when it is not incorporated or applied into the soil. Hang in there....I know how heartbreaking drought can be, the first three years of farming I didnt even get the combine out once. Hope that some more summer rains are headed your way.

[Nick]

In our area either 32-0-0 on top (liquid) or 11-52-0 (dry) with the drill...that is no-till anyway, conventional has many approaches...