interesting... oats

[saskcanfarmer]

Prove me wrong. I love being proved wrong if it means more money in my pocket.

[furrowtickler]

So what products are cheaper that can be applied with Herbicide and or fungicide at meaningfull rates with no risk of crop burn? Just asking, so I can do comparison's next year.
If you have never tried a product you should not make a statement about it.
What other product is out there like Kugler? Alpine has a few, but nothing with as low salt index. Been using Alpine products for 11 years now.
What other products are out there for the serious top dresser? Ive tried Black Lable products, "Best' products, ATP products and a few others as well as 28-0-0, 46 -0-0, 21-0-0-24.
We have been top dressing our crops for about 15 years, Have yet to meet anyone locally that is more serious about it. But will gladly love to talk shop talk and get more pointers.
Fall meeting is Oct 30th at the North Star game - will have all info there for everyone to see, good or otherwise.
Around the office most of the time , stop in and I will show what we seen.
Sorry for rambling on, I just don't speculate on products I have never used.

[saskcanfarmer]

28-0-0 is the best bang for your buck too dressing. No questions about it. Is top dressing the same as foliar feeding??

And once again I'm not saying the product(s) doesn't work I'm saying their are better investments.

[furrowtickler]

We have used 28-0-0 lots before as well, 15 years off and on, and your right - best bang for your buck. But It needs rain to get it into soil then into plant. The last few years it has worked very well with rains every 3-4 days, but over the years we have top dressed 28-0-0 that is very rare in this area. Also needs a separate application.
I have also had high leaf burn, stunted my crop and applied 28-0-0 then had no rain for 2 weeks and lost most of it. 28 with liquid sulfer works well, as Klause says poor mans agrotain - but still need rain to get it into plant.
Have you tried 'melting' down 46-0-0? Some have on agriville here - I think Ado in one.

[saskcanfarmer]

I would counter and say Krugler at herbicide timing also needs a rain because as much as 75% of spray will miss target but that's just a number. I'm sure T Wolf would have the number.

I have not tried melting 46. Heard many success stories but we keep talking about efficiencies and time management. I would suspect it's pretty labour and time intensive? Maybe not?

[furrowtickler]

BTW - 99% of "Salesman" in these products have absolutely zero experience with them in the field , so I am not really a salesman , more of a curious farmer that is tring to offer something different that can save you "time" and put a few more bucks in your pocket. But your right it may not be a fit for your farm, but you cant discount it if you never had it on your farm or at least come see the results first hand.
One other issue we have had several times with 28-0-0 is that if we were lucky to time it just right with a rain, in wheat, the N went mostly straight into straw and caused excessive lodging if applied at the right time for yield impact - yes we got the yield but had to fight lodged crop.
We hit my target this year on 600 ac of hrsw of 70 bus and 14 pro with 54 lbs seed placed N then top dressed Kugler with very little lodging except for overlaps on headlines. Those were the same results we got from two of our trials and from two other farms in the area. It was nice to combine at 4.5mph in standing wheat rather than 2.5mph in lodged wheat. Standing wheat yielded better and had better protein.

[saskcanfarmer]

Hey can't dispute the numbers. I'll have to stop by sometime and get the exact cost and get concrete numbers and come to a final conclusion. There's days where you're a salesman first and days where you're a farmer first. Just the nature of the beast.

[furrowtickler]

Lol - ya I guess your right

[ado089]

I went with 28-0-0 this year and kugler. A separate app is worth about 10cents per pound on average. I was not set up to melt urea this year. I'm hoping now that we have some calibration numbers for the kugler we can play with the recs vs soil/foliar ratio. I struggle to justify the full cost of kugler or any other urea formedihyde product but think I may have a good fit in a mix with dissolved urea. It's always delicate balancing traditional wisdom with innovation. I think the real key is to be aware and knowledgeable about the options and remain flexible with their implementation.

[ado089]

'it should have a good fit"