Yield Follow-Up: Clinton County MI Topdress Wheat

So as part of my travels  through the summer, I often show some sort of field fertilizer comparison.  I try to get caught up on how those turned out after harvest.  I thought I would start close to home, where on May 3 in the post: Wheat Streaks I showed a wheat field with some topdress strips of AgroLiquid vs urea.  Specifically it was 15 gal/A of PRIMAGRO N + 14.5 gal/A of High NRG-N + 1 qt/A of Micro 500 + 1 qt/A of Manganese applied on April 14 compared to 250 lb/A of urea applied on April 24 (in the original post I put 200 lb of urea, but as I found out later, it was 250 lb).  The AgroLiquid strips were nice and green while the urea wheat was yellow.  This pic was in the May 3 blog post.  You can see the other strip in the upper right corner.  Two 80 ft passes of AgroLiquid were made on the North side and one on the South side.

 A month later they looked similar in color as the urea wheat had greened up.  Unfortunately there was a lot of grass here.  I believe it was smooth brome grass.  It got sprayed with Huskie, but that wouldn't control grass.

 At harvest, a single 15 ft pass was made with our combine was made in adjacent sections of the topdress treatments, down to the end of the trees (yellow line) which was 915 feet.  The combine drove in the middle of the strips to avoid any stray urea influence.  Yields were determined with our scaled grain cart, and are on the picture below.  (This was a drone image taken on May 3.)                                     

The yields were low for the area, undoubtedly due to the grass infestation.  But there was an overall 5 bu/A advantage for the AgroLiquid.  There was a bigger difference in the North comparison. The higher yield was from AgroLiquid, but it was just a slightly higher overall return (check local listings).  But wouldn't you rather spray topdress with your own sprayer instead of having to pay for a spreader? 

Cover Crops....Decisions, Decisions

Cover crops have been around for a number of years, but are still being explored as options for soil improvement.  Reported benefits include nutrient recovery, reduction of compaction and enhanced soil health by providing an environment for beneficial microbes.  The NCRS has had cover crops for years following wheat harvest.  Just don't have enough time after soybeans and corn.  Admittedly we haven't done a great deal of work on cover crop mixture testing.  Usually a blend of oats and tillage radish is planted.  Here is a strip from a fertilizer test where plant establishment was poor.  Can you guess why? 

Well it seems that a soil amendment in the form of 300 lb/A of muriate of potash was spread and lightly incorporated (vertical tillage) prior to planting.  This picture was taken in late September a little over a month after planting.  On either side is 100 lb/A of potash in this field with very low soil test potassium.  We will follow it next year with corn plots.  Interesting result though.

Over on Farm 7 we are having a comparison of some different tillage and cover crop combinations.  Compaction is a problem at the NCRS when you work with plots that have lots of traffic in the form of planting, spraying, foliar apps, combine and grain cart/weigh wagon.  So often the ground will be ripped and then planted to cover crop when wheat is in the rotation.  There are four replicated treatments, again following wheat.  (You may see some frosted corn from where the weigh wagon was cleaned out after corn harvest plus spread seed from old partial bags of corn.  This area is normally not plot ground.)  These are long strips going up and over that hill in the background.

This strip was ripped only.  (A ripper is a tillage tool with shanks that go deep into the soil to break up compaction zones. You can see the strips where these shanks ran.  The soil needs to be rather dry in order to shatter the compaction zone.) No cover crop, that's volunteer wheat.  These pictures were taken on November 8 and were planted in early September.

This strip was ripped and then planted to our standard oats and tillage radish.  Looks like good establishment.

This strip had no tillage and no cover crop, other than this volunteer wheat.

This strip had no tillage, but had annual ryegrass and tillage radish.  Unfortunately the ryegrass didn't get off to a very good start.  We are testing this as I have been told by others that the ryegrass will root down deep enough to break up compaction, especially in combination with the radish.  So we will monitor these strips through corn harvest next year.  And there are four replications of each of these.

This is a different cover crop: one of the winter wheat experiments on Farm 3, as it was on November 8.

I've been meaning to get this cover crop info loaded into a blog for awhile now.  Mission accomplished.

Happy Thanksgiving from the NCRS

So now with even more evidence that the year is speeding by, here it is Thanksgiving already.  As a place with the task of researching ways of growing more and better food, yesterday the NCRS staff took time to enjoy a Thanksgiving feast of our own.  It sounds corny (which,ironically, is one food that we did not have), but we have all been working together for quite a while, some for many years, and it was nice to sit together and enjoy a festive meal.  And we have plenty for which we are Thankful.  (You didn't think I would end a sentence with a preposition did you?)

I'd say it was as good as Grandma's with taters and gravy, stuffing, green bean casserole, cole slaw from our own cabbage, sweet potato casserole, chip dip, rolls, cookies, pie and of course TURKEY.  And all, well mostly all, was homemade.  So that was a good practice for tomorrow.  It was just like family except no food fight.  We all wish for you to have a great Thanksgiving wherever you are. 

More Winter Pasture

So here is some unfinished reporting from my Oklahoma expedition last month.  As reported, wheat pasture is big for feeding cattle.  Here is Retail Partner Parker talking to a long-time AgroLiquid customer about wheat and who knows what else?

Looks good doesn't it?  Still needs a little more growth before turning out some cattle.  But wait, this isn't wheat.  It's rye.  He likes rye because it establishes faster on this sandy ground and gets better fall growth.  It's also a little more cold tolerant.  It's the first rye pasture for grazing that I had seen.  He ran fertilizer through the drill, a blend of Pro-Germinator and High NRG-N.

But wait, what's wrong here?

Darn fall armyworm.  They can do some serious damage if you don't catch them.  There is certainly much more of a need for scouting insects in the fall in the South than we have up in Michigan.   At this time of year there are two options: spray or wait for a frost.  I think he was going to spray.    There wasn't a huge amount of feeding, but it wasn't hard to find.  Unchecked, large blocks of a pasture can disappear from armyworms.  They are easier to control when small like this.  Besides, that rye is for cattle, not worms.  Not much market for armyworm ribeye.

So AgroLiquid is doing it's job in all types of crop nutrition needs.  Just keep out trespassers.

Martin Truex is NASCAR Champion!

So no doubt by now you know that our favorite NASCAR driver Martin Truex Jr is now the NASCAR champion for the 2017 season.  He won the last race of the year at Homestead FL to secure the top spot.  Here he is on the final lap holding off the second place driver and last year's champion Kyle Bush.

 From the car cam there is happiness and fireworks.  This was his 8th victory of the year, the most by any driver.

 Here is the customary burn out.  On the scroll at the bottom there is the placing of Dale Earnhardt Jr finishing 25th in his final race ever.

 That's Martin on the right hoisting the trophy with his crew chief Cole Pearn, who is from Ontario.  Canada, not California.  So how unusual for a one-car team based in Colorado with a driver from New Jersey and a crew chief from Canada to win the championship of a sport deeply rooted in the Southeast, more specifically North Carolina.

And you should know why Martin is our favorite driver, who has been the subject of a number of blogs over the past couple years.  Well team owner Barney Visser, who is the owner of Furniture Row stores, is also a very large farmer in the Denver area who uses AgroLiquid on many thousands of acres of dryland crops.  Unfortunately he suffered a heart attack and surgery earlier this month and had to miss the final couple of races, including this one.  But he came through all of it and was released from hospital and no doubt enjoyed the finale at home.  So congratulations to Martin and Furniture Row Racing.

Finishing Harvest at the NCRS

So nearly daily rainfall with cold and cloudy conditions, there was virtually no harvest the past two weeks.  But on Wednesday the sun came out and it dried up enough to resume corn plot harvest. Here is the harvest crew on Farm 7.  That's Tim in the cart, Ron driving the tractor and Jeff at the combine controls.

 So I climbed up and rode a few rounds with Jeff and watched the massive 4-row corn head devour corn.  Well it works for us, to harvest the middle four rows of our six row plots.  Every year I am grateful when we finish harvest without a breakdown as I think it would be difficult to find a four row head these days.  Although I think the people who actually do the harvest work would like to have a newer and bigger one.  Well you just don't rush into such a drastic change.

 It was a nice day, but cold.  There were still several experiments to harvest, but they worked late and finished up Farm 7.  Good thing because early on Thursday it started to rain again and continued through Thursday with light snow Thursday night.

Once again here is a picture of Tim taking samples for determine test weight and moisture. This grain cart has a scale for measuring plot production.  The weight from each plot is entered on an iPad and automatically sent to the data network.

Meanwhile back at the NCRS office....Renae takes the samples that Tim collected and runs them through our Dickey John grain tester for test weight and moisture.  She enters those numbers on another iPad, and somehow it all gets merged, sorted and averaged.  

It's come a long way since the sliding balance for test weight, a portable moisture tester, and catching the corn in bags and weighing them later.  Good thing, as modern and accurate research is the norm at the NCRS for it's 24th crop harvest.   Where does the time go?  But they did finish plot harvest today.  Now to decipher the numbers and see what happened.

Acres and Acres of Beautiful Cotton

So when I was in Oklahoma a few weeks ago, I went over to see Retail Partner Parker Christian in Cordell, which is in SW OK.  When I was there last spring, I reported that there was going to be quite a bit of cotton planted.  And there was.  After a good growing season, it looks like there will be a good crop.  This field was just ready for harvest, and Parker likes what he sees.  Especially when it was fertilized with AgroLiquid.  Parker sold quite a bit of PRIMAGRO P for cotton, due to excellent handling and anticipated performance.  Well as you can see, performance was excellent.

A common application was 3 gal/A PRIMAGRO P + 7 gal/A of High NRG-N + 1 qt/A Micro 500 applied 2x2.  (That's in a band placed 2" over and 2" below the seed with the planter).  Remember this is dryland Oklahoma, and rates are usually low because of this.  But in a good year with some rain, production can be be high.  Look at all of the beautiful cotton awaiting harvest.

We looked at several Agro-fed fields and they all looked full of soft, fluffy cotton.  The growers were pleased with how the AgroLiquid  handled during planting and with how it looked now.

Darn traffic congestion.  Can't be in a hurry down here.

Now here is another field with some long-time AgroLiquid growers.  But where is all of the soft, fluffy cotton?  Well cotton is not like other crops where you can wait for it to mature naturally, at least up here where there it can freeze.  Cotton is a plant that starts flowering on the bottom branches and succeeds up the plant.  The pollinated flowers turn into bolls that open when mature, revealing the cotton fibers.  But later developed bolls at the top will still be closed at the time of boll opening at the bottom.  Well, once it freezes, the bolls will stay closed and you can't get the cotton out.  So you have to spray on a plant hormone to promote boll opening.  The most widely used is Ethephon which  converts to ethylene to promote maturity.  Additionally, you will add something to defoliate the plant of leaves so that the cotton is just open bolls, stems and stalks.  This field had been recently sprayed for this. 

See the open bolls on the bottom and the closed bolls on top, that will soon be promoted to open.  The leaves are already starting to dry out and will drop.  Parker also has custom application and sprays a lot of the cotton around here.

Well as a collector of everything, I brought some cotton back to Michigan to show on my desk.  Most people here had not seen cotton and were impressed with how it looks at harvest.  I have some left if you want a sample to take home.

A few people took some home to make Q Tips or something.  But if you are a cotton grower, you should use AgroLiquid.  Well if you want a great crop that is.  If not, use something else!

OK Wheat Pasture Trial, Year 2

So some may recall that AgroLiquid cooperated on a wheat pasture trail with the Noble Foundation in Southern Oklahoma last year.  Brian Waugh and I went to their headquarters in Ardmore in August 2016 to propose a test, and were fortunate that they implemented a split field trial of 75 acres each of AgroLiquid and dry.  I have reported on some visits there in the past.  It was just a preliminary test. Well we are now in year 2, and it will be a better trial this year.  Last year there was only one herd and they moved it from side to side each week. So didn't really get a chance to measure feed effects on growth.  But this year there will be a separate herd on each side which will enable separate tracking of cows and pasture.  It will be a cow-calf population and should be put out around December 1.

Recently SAM Jay Ostmeyer, Agronomist Reid Abbot and I paid a visit on October 18.  It had been planted almost a month earlier on September 20-22. 

It had been dry, and there wasn't as much growth as there had been at the same interval as last year.  This is a view of the conventional side.  It had a broadcast application of 150 lb/A of MAP (11-52-0) recently.  But no other fertilizer.  They will top-dress with urea later.  There was no phosphorus applied last year.  You can kind of see where the dividing fence will be on the left.

And just to the West of that same fence line is the Agro side.  It had an 11.5 gal/A drill application of a blend of High NRG-N, Pro-Germinator, Kalibrate, Micro 500 and Manganese, same as last year.  It will be top-dressed with High NRG-N later.  I think it looks better, but I'm not a cow.

There was moisture earlier in the fall, but not now.  It is heavy ground too (CEC around 30), especially when dry.  Reid is just able to dig a hard chunk.  Rain was in the forecast, and they did get 0.7" three days later.  So that should help.

They dug a pond last year in anticipation of having a two herd test someday.  This is at the South end of the field and will be just for the AgroLiquid cows.  Sorry, but we have to discriminate for science.  There is another pond at the North end for the conventional cows.  This picture was taken last year on October 21, and reported in the blog on October 25, 2016 (OK wheat pasture update....).  So it wasn't much of a pond then, just a hole.  But it filled up rather quickly.  I was there on January 21, 2017 and it was full.  (See Home on the range, Feb 13 blog).

 And here it is nearly a year later from nearly the same angle.  Those hoof prints may be from last spring as there haven't been any cattle here for a long time.

 And here it is from the dam on the South side, looking up toward the pasture field.  Looks drinkable to me. 

So need some more wheat growth for the the future cow residents.  I will be back some time for an update.