Soil test results! Wow you fert dealers won't be screwing us in 2013!

[SASKFARMER3]

Our anhydrous bill will be 10 to 20 lbs less
ammonia. On all acres.

[Choice2U]

Bmbg re NH3...Your nose can detect 1 ppm which is equivalent to 1/16" on a mile. 300 - 400 ppm (3-4 ft/mile) can kill you. Point is...even a very strong smell and the poofing you see behind the shanks is probably a very small percentage of what you are putting on. When I was in the fert industry, I used to have an NH3 test kit which detected hydroxyl ions in the soil allowing one to see where the NH3 affinity to water was taking place. A client by Cupar was concerned about gasing off one fall (dry conditions on heavy soil) and I used the kit to show him. As soon as he saw the bright pink circle the size of a dime with no pink towards the surface of the trench, his concern was gone. Those kits may still be around which can really ease one's mind in dry conditions.

[bobofthenorth]

Sorry bgmb - I wasn't ignoring you, I just hadn't been back on here for a while. I think Choice2U has pretty well nailed it - if you can walk behind the cultivator you LIKELY don't have significant losses. I don't think anyone can really quantify what the exact losses are but if the dog running behind the cultivator doesn't turn up his toes its likely acceptable losses.

As far as S soil testing goes, don't bother. Les Henry did some work many years ago now by Choiceland - on Joe Pender's land if I remember correctly. As I recall they did 160 cores, 1 per acre gridded on a 1/4 section and the results varied from something like 1 ppm to over 1000 ppm. On the average, the samples showed more than adequate available sulphur but most of the grids were deficient. How can that be? Sulphur is bound as gypsum in our soils. If the test core happens to get one granule of gypsum on the whole field then your average test will be adequate, despite the fact that every single other core may be severely deficient. Unless you are prepared to grid sample for sulphur you're wasting your time - just put on S for canola regardless and if you've ever seen S-deficiency then you likely should put 3-5 pounds on cereals as well.

[Jay-mo]

Thanks for the advice on the sulfur. Likely will stick with my usual application, especially on canola.