Published October 30, 2019 | By Mike Petersen
From cold Colorado where the temperatures have dropped to near zero, snow from 3 to 12 inches in places which sure puts the ‘Ky-Bosch’ on getting harvest done, but back in Nebraska where the weather did not hit quite as quick the lads at North Forty Pioneer dealership, Polk, Nebraska shared with us their yield results which we aided and abetted their work with the Orthman 1tRIPr and some fertility placed in the tillzone. Nick Hatfield informed us he was pleased with the results in a cool and wet year that hovered over that part of Nebraska.
The lads finished harvesting last week. These were all 4 row plots on 30 inch rows. What the guys are shooting for and we at Orthman have been advocating is to keep the inputs of Nitrogen as low as we can and not knock the plant health or yield. A bit of scrutiny but the results speak highly of what Nick and Dennis accomplished. Total with pre-plant, starter, sidedress operations and late season applications was 200.3 lbs of N.
With that we can count and calculate the amount to produce 230bpa up to 267bpa ranges from 0.87lbs/bushel to a low of 0.76lbs/bu. Those of us involved with this plot and others continues to be raise top notch yields on the least amount of pounds of N per bushel. Our question to you, is this a possibility on your farm as you raise rain-fed or irrigated corn? Now this happened to be lightly irrigated corn near Polk, Nebraska.
The out-of-date thoughts of 1.1 to 1.5lbs N/bushel which has been the recommendations for a long time in a conventional tillage systems is not as efficient and ecologically minded as what we promote with the Orthman Strip-Till System approach. We are working with growers in the Sandhills of Nebraska and Colorado that are tweaking their fertility programs and management to reside at 0.65-0.75lbs N/bushel corn yields. Placing N and other nutrients right in the pathway of the dominant portion of the downward growing root system is absolutely the method to make this happen and to split apply in the growing season. It is still important to meet the plant needs at the critical physiological times. When growers learn and make this a program for their farms and fields, they grow some pretty fantastic crops. Understand everyone that the skies have to be favorable before dry down.
We at Orthman are very pleased for Nick and Dennis who cooperate with us on several endeavors to promote wise stewardship and conservation practices in east central Nebraska. Congratulations guys! More to come from other growers in the coming days.