high input farmers

[blackpowder]

It is our job to make nature the lowest stave in the barrel.
Proper hands on c/w a proper balanced ration. I feel but can't prove a few things. Like maintaining a higher P K level shows. It all shows when stressed.
Granted, it is not a zero crop here, more like 60% maybe.
Soil tests very cheap considering. Still a lot of farmers who don't really want to know.
From experience I'll likely need 80+% of my normal N.

[Old Cowzilla]

Fert pellets still being dug up in my area . What rain we did get didn,t meet with the stuff banded that sat above the higher moisture zone. Maybe this years fert bill can get spread out for 2 years use ?

[bucket]

Fert pellets still being dug up in my area . What rain we did get didn,t meet with the stuff banded that sat above the higher moisture zone. Maybe this years fert bill can get spread out for 2 years use ?

Guys fertilize for 50bpa can't be needing much of a top up for fertilizer next year if they grow a 10bpa crop this year . Can they.

[the big wheel]

It will be interesting to see nutrient levels
I m worried they were dissolved but
Not moved into the lower soil area and maybe
Was lost in the wind and heat?
Side band maybe not as good as coulters?

[AlbertaFarmer5]

Crop variety selection comes into play as well I believe. As an example semi-dwarf crops that respond well to higher fertility also demand more water and perform poorly in a drought. Various varieties of CPS wheat I find perform poorly when it is dry compared to CWRS varieties. With barley I find quite a difference as well. I grew Synergy, Austenson and Sirish. Sirish definitely doesn’t like the dryer weather.

I was going to start a thread on this very topic. I grew Sirish, synergy and a variety in between height wise last year. Synergy was flat from corner to corner, but survived under water and thrived in saturated soil, Sirish stood up really well, but was a disaster anywhere there was water stress.
This year I decided I would rather have flat crop then poor crop, so I grew all synergy.
Every once in a while I accidentally do something right this was definitely one of those times. The synergy barley looks very good.
In the early 2000s we started growing Thompson semi dwarf barley because it didn't Lodge very easily. It really really doesn't like hot and dry. There were some decent barley crops in the area of tall varieties, the Thompson headed out in June at a foot high and only yielded 50 bushels in 2002 and 2003 without any rain. After a few years of no rain gave up went back to tell varieties and it rained ever since.
I grow a really short CPS variety (actually CNHR now) and I think I am regretting that this year.

I second the motion that Invigor handles stress of any kind better than any of the RR varieties. I was beginning to think they had closed the gap, but this year the difference is very evident. Glad to have mostly invigor (and P501L) varieties this year.
I see the same issue as short cereals in the supposedly short season canolas on a dry year as well.

[WiltonRanch]

Had a fair rain after seeding was complete but not much after. Think fertilizer is trapped in the clay as usual. Next years fertilizer expenditure might be trimmed a fair amount. Thinking wheat and cereals maybe 60% normal but canola 25% to 33% of normal. Crop next year maybe 50% normal fertility cause unless we have enough rain there isn’t enough subsoil moisture to pull much of anything through.

[BreadWinner]

Maybe the high input farmers have deeper pockets? I can actually see that on the normal years they can hit it out of the park. I can see next year will have 2 types of farmers, ones that double down and ones that just plop in some seed and wait for the adjuster. I wonder which will come out on top?

[blackpowder]

I get what you're saying.
I'm applying fert next year also with an eye on moisture etc.
But here, the lion's share of expense is gone beforehand. You don't go broke buying fertilizer.

[jazz]

We did soil testing last yr and had enough built up fertility that we could have skipped a yr but we put down a full package anyway. Curious to know whats going to be there this fall.

I imagine the ag reps will be crowing about not drawing down your fertility bank account.

[WiltonRanch]

Probably the right thing to do is not really cut back next year on fertility. It’s only 1 dry year. Right?