Don’t Forget to Save on Your Seed

Early reports from the fields are showing very promising yields. We are hearing some astounding numbers coming out from Agrigold planted fields. There is still time to take advantage of best seed discounts, don’t miss out on your chance to save. Contact your agronomy salesperson, Taylor Flynn, or Rob Patterson for more information.

Summer Tissue Sample Results

Each year we struggle to know if the products we put on in the fall and spring are still supplying our crops. This year we had a great opportunity for our ProVantage customers. Fields enrolled in ProVantage were used to do tissue sampling during the growing season. These tissue samples looked to see how many nutrients were in the plants at the time the sample was taken, then turned into a report to let the grower know if the given element was Very High, High, Medium, Low, and Very Low. Some of the results were truly shocking.

Of the fields tested, 88% of corn fields came back deficient in Boron, 71% of corn fields were deficient in Manganese, and 75% of corn fields were deficient in Magnesium. This shocked me. Fertilizer is a necessity in every field but it is also very expensive. We spend a lot of money to make sure fields are properly fertilized for the crop. It would be such a shame to let one of these lesser nutrients be the limiting factor on your corn yield potential.

Now you may be thinking to yourself this seems like a huge undertaking or reworking your entire current fertilizer program. It is not and does not have to be. These micronutrients do not have to be applied foliar, a lot of times we can mix them in with your starter loads or side dressing applications.

Use ALF for a Complete Fall Nutrient Program

We have been talking a lot about ALF recently. ALF is actually a co-product of corn based fermentation process and is used as a nitrogen fertilizer.

The nitrogen in ALF is in the organic form (similar to when you apply manure on a field) which means it is readily available for plant use but does not leach through the soil. ALF does not need to be incorporated in the soil; this is due to the high rate of application and the positively charged ions within it that attach themselves to the negatively charged soil particles. ALF however, has so much more to offer than just a nitrogen source.

ALF also contains a healthy dose of sulfur for your fields. Sulfur is the fourth macro nutrient needed in crop production after N, P, & K. This sulfur is readily available for use in the sulfate form and requires no further microbial activity.

ALF helps to increase the rate of decomposition of plant residues. When you apply ALF in the fall, it makes nitrogen and sugars available to the microbial bacteria helping with the decomposition of the crop residue. This makes ALF a great choice for nitrogen fertilizer on corn-on-corn rotations.

ALF is also great as a base to a complete fall nutrient program. You can add in liquid P & K or even fall chemicals to make this a one pass fertilizer program. This saves you time in the spring and money on additional applications.