So it's Saturday night...what else is there to do but put up another blog post? This was actually from last Monday and Tuesday when I made my way to Maryland to see fertilizer plots established by our friend Ron Mulford. I was met there by field agronomist John and SAM Benjy, who are talking to Ron himself below.
Ron is retired from the University of Maryland as manager for the Poplar Hill Research and Extension Facility located downstate on the Eastern Shore near Salisbury. Although retired, Ron still has access to some plot ground there and is not one to sit around. He loves plotwork, and likes AgroLiquid, and has run tests for many years on a variety of corn, wheat and soybean plots. So that is part of many of the tests he runs. Like this plot of soybeans that is testing different foliar applied fertilizers. He also has some corn fertilizer tests there. It was a good visit.
After looking at plots for awhile, Benjy enjoys a corn snack.
Haven't we seen this before? Well we're seeing it again on Tuesday headed to some off-site corn tests.
Here we are seeing some different nitrogen sidedress treatments. They used drop nozzles to spray a band of the different nitrogen solutions at sidedress. The target rate was 120 lb of N per acre. Below is an application of 30 gal/A of High NRG-N. Looks pretty good considering all of the rain this summer.
Here is only 16 gal/A of High NRG-N. Looking for a rate break in applied N, I think this is it. But we will see what it yields.
This one looks good. It is 120 lb-N/A as 30% UAN. Not 32%, not 28%...the great compromise at 30%. Still seems unusual to me.
And here is a plot that received no additional N at sidedress. So he yields will tell the whole story. But I would say that this one is not looking so good.
And of course it started raining while we were at the far end of the field. Time to leave, but notice that Benjy's hat also makes a nice umbrella.
It was back to Salisbury to my favorite restaurant there for a great seafood lunch. Still hoping they will open one in St. Johns.
