No-Till Farmer Blog

Some final thoughts regarding fertilizer on the planter. Last time, we covered in-seed furrow liquid fertilizer applications.

Remember, the seed provides the nutrition for the corn plant through V1. From V1 to V2, plant nutrition is obtained from the seed-furrow area, so having a source of plant-available nutrients is important, especially in the cool soil environment encountered in no-till during the early growing season.

At V3 to V4, the corn plant is determining the potential number of kernels that the ear will develop. This number will never go higher (kernel counts only fall after this stage) than what is determined during early growth, so we do not want to stress the plant by not having enough plant-available nutrients at this stage of growth. The idea is to use plant-available nutrients and/or plant growth regulators to make the plant sense that growing conditions are better than they actually are in cool soils.

There are many fertilizer materials to use as in-furrow nutrient sources. A common starter in our area is based on 10-34-0 at 5 to 7.5 gallons per acre with potassium thiosulfate fertilizer at 1 to 3 quarts per acre and liquid zinc at 1 to 2 quarts per acre. Some growers add a plant-growth regulator type of material, such as Stoller BioForge, at 4 to 16 ounces per acre in the mix.

*Caution* — In high-fertility fields where only nitrogen is needed, our growers are using a stabilized and diluted UAN-solution-based starter in-furrow. Done right, this starter will provide a great starter effect.

*Caution* — You must stabilize the UAN with a product Agrotain or Agrotain Plus to prevent seed and/or seedling injury (ammonia burn) and the UAN must be diluted to a 50:50 UAN:water mix so you can apply enough material for a continuous string (6 gallons per acre). Dilution provides a measure of protection from ammonia injury as well. Do both or do not try it!

You can add liquid zinc if needed and a plant growth regular type of material to provide additional early growth stimulation. If the soil is dry or becomes dry at planting time, add water for a 33:67 UAN/water ratio. Limit nitrogen in-furrow to recommended limits set by your state extension. We do not exceed 10 pounds nitrogen (or nitrogen plus potassium) per acre in-furrow in our area and we reduce this limit in dry soils.

Starter fertilizer that is banded beside or over the row can be liquid or dry granular. The liquid materials listed for in-furrow application work well as long as the 70-pound limit of nitrogen plus potassium is adhered to and the band is at least 2 inches from the row or seed. If using UAN, stabilizing it with a product like Agrotain Plus adds a safety margin and will help protect the supply of nitrogen until the crop needs it.

One of our recommended dry granular starters is a 50:50 blend of SuperU (Agrotain’s stabilized urea) and Sulf-N-45 (Honeywell’s ammonium sulfate) at 100 to 210 pounds of fertilizer per acre when applied 2 to 3 inches from the seed. This is a great high-fertility nitrogen (or nitrogen plus sulfur) starter program with lots of nitrogen stretch into the growing season.

A quick note or two about no-till coulters. First, use a coulter designed for no-till, such as a 13-wave (preferred) or turbo coulter (distant second choice). Bubble coulters are not designed to be used in no-till planting. They are a carry-over from minimum-till days. Because bubble coulters usually cause seed-furrow sidewall compaction, the spike closing wheel came on the scene to correct a problem that in most cases should not have existed.

Type and setting are critically important. Never set the no-till coulter deeper than the double-disc, seed-furrow opener. Standard setting is 1/8 inch shallower than the double-disc opener. *Never set the coulter deeper than the double-disc opener.*

The 13-wave coulter is designed to provide some loosened soil to work with and offer some row cleaning action.

No-till coulter depth control is critical in establishing a stand with high yield potential. It’s very difficult to set and/or maintain the relationship of no-till coulter setting to the double-disc opener setting if the no-till coulter is mounted to the planter frame. Our recommendation is unit-mounted, 13-wave no-till coulters almost without exception. The exception would require a spring-loaded mounting system and depth gauge wheels or other depth-limiting system on a frame-mounted no-till coulter.

Next time, I’ll share my thoughts on row cleaners, planting unit opener discs and depth gauge wheels, and row-closing systems.

Send your questions to Darrell Bruggink at dbruggink@lesspub.com or leave your comments below the blog. You can also view our planter setup video on the Penn State Crop Management Extension Group Web site.

There are several items related to what we do with the no-till planter that have a significant impact on the yield expectations.

The premise is that we expect very high-yielding crops using the no-till system of crop production. After all, water is the most critical input for high yields, and no-till properly done always yields more plant-available water. We have great genetic yield potential in today’s seeds, and this potential continues to improve with progressive research. Our soils are in pretty good shape fertility-wise and we are working on improving soil health.

With a good growth medium (soil), top genetics (seed) and an ample supply of crop nutrients (fertilizer, manure and/or biosolids), an insufficient supply of water is the most limiting input for the crop. Regardless of the job we do with the soil, choosing genetics and providing nutrients, water availability will have more of an impact on yield than any other input.

Previously, I’ve looked at the positive results from using cover crops and residue management to maintain a mulch cover on the soil surface to increase crop-available soil water — and improve soil health. We then considered the impact of using starter fertilizer on our corn crop. We can force some excellent early season growth with strategically placed starter fertilizers.

With this as our background, let’s turn our attention to the no-till planter. We have one opportunity each season to plant the crop right. If we fail to get it right, the high yields we are striving for will elude us. Using the corn planter as an example and starting at the front hitch and ending with the seed furrow closing system, we can break down the components to make sure they are doing the job the way it needs to be done.

Tractors have drawbars that vary in height. Never forget this. The planter hitch is designed so it can be adjusted. This allows the planter hitch to be fitted to a wide range of drawbar heights. By properly adjusting the hitch clevis on the planter, we can have the desired planter hitch height. The correct planter hitch height assures a level planter front to back. A level planter can operate as designed. A tilting planter will always be a problematic planter. Step one: Level the planter by setting the hitch height as stipulated in the operator’s manual.

Next up is the fertilizer delivery system. Fertilizer can be placed pretty far front or back on the planter. The optimum setup will place starter fertilizer in the seed furrow and in a band beside or over the row. The seed-furrow fertilizer is usually a liquid formulation and is applied through a furrow-placed tube or seed firmer.

The most common problem is the use of oversized tubing. Quarter-inch tubing is the standard for a seed-furrow delivery system. Larger-diameter tubing will usually cause breaks in the delivery flow. The ideal is an unbroken string of liquid fertilizer in the seed-furrow area.

The second problem is not using a flow meter or other flow check device to monitor individual row flow rates and to prevent line draining when the planter is raised for turnaround. Limit nitrogen plus potassium rates according to local area recommendations (usually 10 pounds per acre of nitrogen plus potassium or less). This is the V1 to V2 growth stage feed.

The banded starter fertilizer beside the row or over the row is very important. This can be dry granular or liquid fertilizer. Use a phosphorus-based fertilizer and put it in the ground if the crop needs phosphorus. If applying a nitrogen and/or potassium fertilizer, a surface dribble application works fine unless the soil is low in potassium, in which case put the potassium in the ground.

On high-testing soils, a nitrogen-only starter works fine by supplying part of the crop’s nitrogen requirements and giving the “starter effect.” This is the V3 to V4 growth stage and beyond feed.

We will move further back on the planter next time. We’d love it if you would post comments here on the blog, or you can send them to Darrell Bruggink at dbruggink@lesspub.com and he can post them for you.

Last time, I wrote about considerations for the use of surface residue mulch to enhance the yield capability of no-till fields by increasing water-use efficiency.

The bottom line is that we need to keep the soil covered all year. For summer annual crops — field corn and soybeans, for example — the soil is essentially covered at full canopy. At harvest, some soil is exposed, so we plant cover crops to build soil health, capture and cycle nutrients and to improve soil structure to name a few of the benefit.

The goal is for the cover crop to keep the soil covered until the next crop reaches full canopy. When transitioning to no-till, establishing a cover crop as the first step helps guarantee great yields from Year 1.

Now, let’s look at starter fertilizer. Without a doubt, this is critically important in high-yield no-till crop production of corn. Corn and soybeans are tropical crops grown in a temperate zone and planted long before we have tropical (summer) weather.

Tillage helps warm the soil and oxidizes nutrients, making them plant available earlier in the growing season. Tillage dries the soil and decreases water-use efficiency. And, just in case no one has reminded you lately, the most limiting input for high-yielding crops is water.

To overcome cooler early season soil temperatures and nutrients that will be oxidized when the soil warms, starter fertilizers provide a tremendous advantage to the no-till crop. This is especially true in the early part of the planting season.

My focus here is on corn. The optimum placement strategy is to place part of the starter fertilizer in the seed furrow and the rest of the starter fertilizer dribbled over the row or in a band beside the row. We opt for this because the seed provides phosphorus and most other necessary nutrients through V1.

At V2, the specific demand for phosphorus is the highest it will be at any growth point in the corn plant’s life cycle. The amount of phosphorus required per pound of corn plant matter is greatest at V2. Corn roots are very small at this stage, so the fertilizer needs to be very close.

At V3 to V4, the corn plant is determining the maximum number of kernels it can potentially produce. We want to influence the corn plant to sense good growing conditions by providing ample amounts of essential plant nutrients, especially phosphorus, so the corn plant is programmed for high kernel count production at V3 to V4.

At this growth stage, corn roots are reaching to fertilizer bands within 2 to 3 inches from the row. In cool, wet soil, broadcast nutrients will in large part stay fixed and immobilized and, as such, unavailable to be taken up by the corn plants. As the soil warms, widespread plant nutrients will be oxidized by soil microbes to more mobile forms that are more easily taken by corn roots that extend outward and downward after V4.

Any stress on the corn plant during the growing season will reduce the kernel count that was set at V3 to V4. The biggest yield robber is lack of water. This is why no-till has such high yield potential: water-use efficiency — available water!

The in-furrow fertilizer is liquid. Use fertilizers that are safe for this placement. Do not exceed 10 pounds per acre of N+K2O+S in moist soil. Check with a local CCA or Extension agronomist so you don’t exceed rates in your area. For example, rates will be lower in dry soils.

In-furrow placement at planting gives opportunity to include plant growth regulators in the fertilizer. In areas with lots of manure and resultant high phosphorus soils, you can benefit from the starter effect in seed-furrow placement of liquid nitrogen fertilizer when necessary precautions are followed.

The dribbled or banded fertilizer can be dry granular or liquid. It should be placed close enough to influence the corn plant at the V3 to V4 growth stage (within 2 to 3 inches). Rates for the dry granular dribbled over the row or the band at the 2-inch placement beside the row should not exceed 70 pounds per acre of N+K2O. The rate may need to be lower in the drier areas of Western corn-growing regions.

Surface application works great in no-till when guidelines are followed.

1. Phosphorus-limited soils will require placing a phosphorus-containing fertilizer into the soil so corn roots can get to the phosphorus this year. Surface-applied phosphorus, due to its slow movement in the soil, will not benefit this year’s crop. It will be available to future corn crops. If you are doing maintenance applications of phosphorus, surface application with high-residue management works great.
2. When surface-applying liquid nitrogen fertilizer (UAN) alone or in combination with other fertilizer ingredients, be sure to stabilize the nitrogen with a urease inhibitor to stop surface volatilization of ammonia, such as Agrotain; or use a combination urease inhibitor/nitrification inhibitor such as Agrotain Plus. The inclusion of a nitrification inhibitor will greatly slow the conversion of ammonium to nitrate by soil microbes. This will reduce nitrate leaching. Because the nitrogen stays in the ammonium form longer, less nitrate is available to be denitrified and lost as nitrous oxide under saturated soil conditions. Agrotain Plus provides three-way nitrogen protection.

Be sure to credit the nutrients in your starter fertilizer program toward your total nutrients required for the crop. We are looking at the effectiveness of dribbling dry granular fertilizer over the row at planting to suppress slug feeding. So far, ammonium sulfate and muriate of potash are providing the best protection in our test trials.

The use of fertilizer to suppress slug feeding on the corn crop must be done within the guidelines of your nutrient management plan. There are minimum rates for slug suppression and maximum rates for corn crop safety.

Use two-placement starter fertilizer for high-yielding no-till corn. Tillage warms the soil and oxidizes nutrients, making them crop available too early. By using two-placement starter fertilizer — and plant growth regulators — in no-till, we even the playing field for good early growth until the soil warms to release nutrients when the corn crop needs them. And remember, we will still have good soil moisture when they (the tillers) have gone dry.

Experience has taught us that three major concerns arise as to why everyone is not no-tilling. Let’s explore these areas and present some of the “reasons why.”

The three major concerns are unstructured soils; planters that are not set up or operated correctly; and the failure to use starter fertilizer. If we can take some actions to counter these problem areas, we will be able to demonstrate a much more successful transition to continuous no-till.

We are now able to transition a farm with well- to moderately well-drained silt loam soils to continuous no-till and experience improved crop yields the first year into the program. And it just keeps getting better.

The first concern centers around the “condition” of the soil. We will assume that soil fertility and pH have been corrected or will be addressed in the transition phase. The chemistry of nutrient levels and balances and proper pH are very important and will strongly influence how we apply starter fertilizer later in our discussion.

This first item is about soil structure. When soil has been regularly tilled, the structure of the soil is pulverized. This is catastrophic to natural soil health. Soil biology is altered by tillage as bacteria are favored over fungal organisms. The fungal organism network is much more efficient at cycling nutrients than bacteria.

Earthworm population dynamics are also greatly altered. Regular earthworms (the size of the lead in a pencil) tolerate tillage fairly well, as they spend most of their life in the top 18 inches or so of soil. Nightcrawlers (the size of the pencil), on the other hand, do not tolerate tillage, and in the presence of tillage, their numbers crash. Their burrows, which can be 40 to 48 inches deep, are cut off and they suffocate. Nightcrawler burrows provide rapid entry access for water into the soil. Water makes the crop.

When the soil is tilled, structure is pulverized and pore space is artificially created by the tillage as the soil is mechanically “loosened.” The artificial pore space may work for the current year with sufficient water. To have effective pore space in a pulverized soil, the same artificial pore space building has to occur every year.

When a soil is no longer disturbed by tillage, it will begin to revert to its native state as a structured soil with adequate pore space in the presence of soil aggregates. Pore space is all about water (and air) and a plant’s ability to get it.

This is the general year-to-year process:

• Year 1 (no-till this year, tilled last year): The soil becomes more dense, and holds water tighter with less available to the plants.
• Year 2  (2nd year no-till): The soil becomes even more dense with less water available to the plants.
• Year 3 (3rd year no-till): Soil remains dense but may begin to lessen as soil structure begins to reinitialize. Water stress continues.
• Year 4 forward: Soil structure redevelops in the soil and, with proper management, can approach good levels. Pore space in structured soil allows plants to utilize water, as it is not held as tight by the soil.

What can be done to manage this condition during the transition phase? We need to first, conserve soil moisture and second, aid in the re-creation of natural soil pore space.

1. To conserve soil moisture by increasing water infiltration and reducing surface evaporation, we need to keep the soil covered with crop residues. This can be very threatening to a new no-tiller who is not accustomed to working with surface residues at planting time. When we need them most, we are most threatened by them in our inexperience. If we are going to transition to continuous no-till and have higher yields right away, the soil surface needs to be well covered with crop residues.
2. To aid the re-creation of natural pore space and enhance the reinitialization and development of soil structure, we depend on cover crops and/or crop rotation to include close-growing, high-residue-producing crops such as small grains. Keeping living roots growing in the soil as much of the year as possible will help quicken the processes involved in soil structure development. When growing cover crops, we are again most threatened by all of that biomass when we need it most. We need to allow sufficient growth time to develop as large a root system as practical. This will provide natural pore space and is a “seedbed” for the reinitialization of soil structure.

With high levels of evenly distributed soil-covering crop residues and the use of cover crops and/or crop rotations to include close-growing crops, such as small grains, we can greatly improve the soil’s ability to supply sufficient amounts of water for high-yielding crops from the start as we transition to continuous no-till.

We have two other areas of concern to consider. Stay tuned. We will address them in upcoming months.

The question occasionally arises, “Just What is No-till?” To answer the question, one simply needs to define the obvious. No-till is no-tillage. There are many procedures involved in making continuous no-till work well. Tillage disrupts what you are trying to accomplish by continuous no-tilling.

For many years, many operators considered themselves no-tillers if they “reduced” tillage and planted the crop with a no-till planter. Many of the challenges associated with the transition to no-till arise from mixing tillage into the formula for successful continuous no-till. If any full-width tillage operation is done to the field, then the field does not meet the qualifications of no-till.

USDA NRCS establishes and keeps the technical standards of the farming practices we carry out on our farms. There are very clear and concise differences between conventional tillage, reduced tillage, mulch tillage and no-till.

For the continuous no-till system to work optimally, no tillage is required. You may want to get a copy of the USDA NRCS standards and specifications for the practice of no-till — and, for that matter, get the standards and specs for the other above-mentioned practices — to better understand the differences between the systems.

Some of the acres we “call” no-till are actually and correctly classified as mulch-till acres by the practice standards. The distinctions made for the differences between the practices are reasonable and essential. Otherwise, anyone can (and has) called just about anything a practice it is not.

Crop management procedures change according to the soil-management practices applied to our fields. For very high-yielding no-till crops and to meet the NRCS standards, do no tillage as the starting point. In coming blogs, I’ll begin to address the many procedures involved in making continuous no-till work well and consider the changes that occur in fields as a result of continuous no-till.

No-till is what it is.. and it is only what it is.