In Ontario, corn growers are approximately six weeks into the growing season and now is a great time to do a couple tests to reassess the nitrate levels and decide on what the best plan is to side-dress nitrogen, on a field by field basis.
Deb Campbell, agronomist with Agronomy Advantage, joins us for this episode of RealAgriculture's Corn School and talks all about which tests should be done and how to go about testing your fields to get the most accurate and usable information.
For this episode, we join Campbell in a corn field that is very well established at the seven-leaf stage and says although it's made good progress, the concern is now to provide enough resources to finish off the crop and ensure a satisfactory yield.
"This is a great window to reassess and and do a gut check on that nitrogen plan that we had in place. Do we increase it? Do we soften it a little bit? What's the status of this corn today? It comes down to in a lot of cases, producers use that number of a pound of nitrogen per bushel of corn, and that's still a good place to start," says Campbell.
Things to consider when reassessing includes if the crop is still on target to hit the yield potential that was set out at the beginning of the season, this along with moisture levels and how much nitrogen is in the soil currently. She says it's really helpful to do tissue sampling of the plants and to do nitrate testing in possibly up to four areas of the field, depending on landscape.
"To do a nitrate test, and to do it well so that you have reasonable confidence in the numbers that you're getting back. You want to take a 12 inch core in the field," says Campbell.
#farming #agronomy #corn #planting #fertilizer
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22 июл 2024
