As greater focus is placed on nutrient reduction strategies, identifying better methods of nitrogen management becomes more critical than ever. Relying on some of the standard historical nitrogen management practices will no longer be an options as they may not be accepted as a best management practice moving forward.
With so many options on the market of nitrogen models and tools, it is a natural tendency to avid change. There is a sense of security to continue with management strategies that have been regularly used in the past.
New technologies and big data are pushing precision agriculture advancements at a rapid pace, to a point that it is hard to make adjustments and keep up. While not all of these technologies and tools work in every situation, being receptive to adapting new management strategies can be critical to the success of a farm operation.
While manure is a great source of many nutrients when growing corn, the natural variability of nutrient concentrations can create challenge. The nutrient management plan used on these fields should be different than fields utilizing strictly commercial fertilizer.
Traditionally in a continuous corn rotation a nitrogen use efficiency (NUE) of between 1.0-1.2 pounds of nitrogen is considered standard. Prior to using PSNT to determine sidedress nitrogen rates this was the NUE observed on this farm.
My objective in requesting this grant is to fine tune my nitrogen requirements to grow a com crop and not leave valuable nutrients susceptible to leaching. I would like to compare the value in different Nitrogen Management decision tools.
BWT this year will be looking at the how “zone tillage” with a 3 coulter cart will affect the soils ability to infiltrate water and reduce surface run off while in a corn on corn situation versus the current SOP of tillage on corn.
Observation during winter and spring 2015 showed some of the worst wind erosion in years. There was a significant amount of soil that was blown into the ditches around fields. The winter of 2016 also did not provide much snow cover which promoted wind erosion.
My first objective is successfully establish a stand of annual ryegrass, oilseed radish and rapeseed into V6 corn while making an in-season nitrogen application. I will accomplish this by using the lnter-seeder/Side-dresser that I built in the spring of 2016 for the first year of my MN Corn Innovation Grant trials.
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