Canola Fertility

[4GFarms]

I hope that is pounds of product and not actual. If its actual that is in excess of 500 lbs/ac of product so you would obviously need it to yield well!!!

[blackpowder]

I'll guess they're actual?
My agronomist sounds a little like Klause. But wow thats a lot of p k in one year. I get criticized for 25-30#s.
I do want to thank klause for posting his real numbers. Real info is very much appreciated. Hopefully the anonymity can allow this exchange to continue. Just ignore the wieners.

[bgmb]

One comment Klause, get a few years of these practices under your belt with consistent results before you start telling everyone how great they are. Exhaust injection worked for a few years too until all the nutrients were depleted.

It is a proven fact canola removes roughly a 2-1-.5-.5 ratio of npks per bu. This is a fact so why would you not fertilize for removal.

[farmaholic]

There may appear to be anonymity upfront there is some contacts made behind the scenes.

I respect Klaus's efforts and like his posts, but some questions need to be asked for clarification purposes.

Case in point.... how can the crop use 100 lbs of each phos and potassium? What's uptake and removal of a decent crop? I can see someone "banking" phos if you own your land....

Explain the lie about potassium levels on soil tests....unavailable to the plant. I often thought the response to potash fertilizer can come from a low soil test level of the micro-nutrient Chloride.

This isn't confrontational debating, its a discussion.

Seems like I am repeating some of the above post was saying but I was busy typing mine out before I had a chance to read bgmb's.

[macdon02]

Klause's idea fits inline with the Haney soil test. Our soils are much more capable of feeding the crop N then the conventional soil testing is suggesting. A friend in North Dakota has been benchmarking fields with the Haney test for 4 years now and is seeing impressive results... so far. This is worth following or trying until proven wrong on your soils.

[bgmb]

Klause's idea fits inline with the Haney soil test. Our soils are much more capable of feeding the crop N then the conventional soil testing is suggesting. A friend in North Dakota has been benchmarking fields with the Haney test for 4 years now and is seeing impressive results... so far. This is worth following or trying until proven wrong on your soils.

Sure, Thing is if the seed from your 45 bu canola crop removed 90lb of nitrogen you will need to add that back at some point we have 7% organic matter on some fields. which is nice and i dont want to mine that down by cutting n rates.

[Sodbuster]

I'm failing to understand the purpose of this trial. Now you are over applying 3 of the 4 nutrients to grow canola, 50 lbs of N is the limiting factor of your yield potential and you've managed to spend a extra $35 in the process.
120-40-20-30 = $89.26
50-100-100-50 =$125.83

[Klause]

N isn't a mineral. You can't deplete N.


N also comes from sources other than just fertiliser and organic matter being converted to N.

Other places in the world take this into account while Canada does not for the most part.


We have used way less N for a few years and our soil tests through Western ag labs rarely ever showed the need for more than 75 lbs of N to grow a 48 bushel canola crop.

Residual N P K levels in our soils have been steadily going up.


As far as the proven fact that canola uses 2 lbs of N...


It's interesting because in Europe, S.A. and even some US studies show 1.3 lbs per bu per acre.


Response curves for P and K go up steadily while for Neven out and then drop off. High N has also shown a drop in oil Content in some cases, higher disease incedence, and smaller seed.


100 lbs of each P and K is extreme. But we will soil test the same spots again this fall as we did in spring. See how much is left...


One thing I will note this canola stayed green longer didn't have as much visible drought stress, grew quite a bit shorter and yielded close to double the area average.

I'm not going to say yield publicly or some shithead will end up reporting it as average



Why do we spend so much time trying to reduce reliance on fertilizer N? Well for one thing the coming carbon tax and associated increases in freight and production costs will close to double the price of N.


Remember commercial sources of N are all made through the Haber-Bosch process and thus a huge creator of co2 and consumer of Nat gas or coal (China)...


Is like to get ahead of the curve and not be stuck paying $800 a tonne for urea again.

[Klause]

Sure, Thing is if the seed from your 45 bu canola crop removed 90lb of nitrogen you will need to add that back at some point we have 7% organic matter on some fields. which is nice and i dont want to mine that down by cutting n rates.

Well what about the N the soil converts itself? Again you're basing your entire premise on all N having to be derived from commercial fertilizer or conversion of organic matter.

OM is always being converted to N. The key is to keep it in a balance adding back straw as you mineralize it to N...

Also in a proper rotation including pulses you are injecting a bunch of nitrogen from the air via rhizobia... So you're adding some artificial N and more OM there.

Plus the 90lbs pulled off by a 45 bpa crop isn't accurate... Again consider the source and whose funding the source.

[Klause]

There may appear to be anonymity upfront there is some contacts made behind the scenes.

I respect Klaus's efforts and like his posts, but some questions need to be asked for clarification purposes.

Case in point.... how can the crop use 100 lbs of each phos and potassium? What's uptake and removal of a decent crop? I can see someone "banking" phos if you own your land....

Explain the lie about potassium levels on soil tests....unavailable to the plant. I often thought the response to potash fertilizer can come from a low soil test level of the micro-nutrient Chloride.

This isn't confrontational debating, its a discussion.

Seems like I am repeating some of the above post was saying but I was busy typing mine out before I had a chance to read bgmb's.

Sorry. Have a read here as to what I meant by potassium and it's unavailability


[URL="http://www.extension.umn.edu/agriculture/nutrient-management/potassium/potassium-for-crop-production/"]http://www.extension.umn.edu/agriculture/nutrient-management/potassium/potassium-for-crop-production/[/URL]