ONTARIO GRAIN FARMER AGRONOMY CropBooster® Oligo Prime® and RR SoyBooster® Oligo Prime® in corn, soybean and wheat crops Over the past five years, across more than 100 trials, Oligo Prime® technology has delivered an average yield increase of over 7.5 bushels per acre for corn growers. Talk to your Agro-100 representative or Ag retailer. 1 866 770.8887 • www.agro-100.com download the Agro100 application for free today! “Oligo Prime® biostimulant products improve young plants resistance to stress, contributing in growing my farm sustainability.” agro_CropB_OntGrainFarmer_half_jan2025_05.indd 1 2025-01-22 11:32 band, and using a standardized template to guide sampling. Using a limited data set showed that a good randomized sampling regime but with attention to avoiding sampling right in the band, gave satisfactory results. He noted that “after several years of strip-till and moving the location of the strip, it may remove any concerns with soil sampling patterns.” The traditional tried-and-true method for applying fertilizer with the planter is to band it two inches to the side and two inches below the corn seed. “The closer you get to the seed, the greater the chance of injury, so the application rate would need to decrease to avoid fertilizer injury,” says Lauzon. He emphasizes the importance of ensuring that the planter is set up properly so the band placement is actually where you want it. He says you shouldn’t assume that the manufacturer has set it up properly. Applying fertilizer with a strip-till unit opens up new possibilities for fertilizer placement. In an ongoing study, with funding from the Grain Farmers of Ontario, Lauzon, along with Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Agribusiness corn specialist Ben Rosser, aims to determine the safe rates of fertilizer application in various placements with a strip tillage unit. “The optimal rate meets the needs of the plant but does not cause injury,” says Lauzon, who is comparing fertilizer toxicity to the seed when fertilizer is placed in one of four locations: in a band four inches below the soil surface, a double band (which had the advantage of having only half the concentration in each band), a deeper sixinch band, and dribbling it in front of a wavy coulter. Early results showed that the placement four inches below the soil surface sometimes placed the fertilizer too close to the seed. However, the deeper six-inch band may be too far from the seed to see the benefit of early potassium in corn. In the treatment where fertilizer was dribbled in front of the coulter, the fertilizer did not get mixed in very well and resulted in toxicity to the corn seed. IS IT A GOOD IDEA TO PERFORM TILLAGE TO REDUCE STRATIFICATION IN NO-TILL? While anecdotally, there are reports of farmers experiencing a yield boost after performing a tillage operation in a previously undisturbed system, Cowan says it is not known if this yield increase is due to remixing phosphorus and potassium that’s near the surface, the release of nitrogen from decomposing organic matter, or getting more air into the soil. “I’m a big fan of multiple methods of fertilizer placement,” says Cowan. “I think the whole top six inches needs a good distribution of phosphorus and potassium. So broadcast, strip-till, some incorporation…I see nothing wrong with managing nutrients in that manner.” •
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