Planters Liquid fertilizer in Furrow on Planter

[Tritonman]

<a href="http://good-times.webshots.com/album/558199759Hebqft"><img src="http://thumb15.webshots.net/t/58/658/6/8/1/2774608010082423655KmTQea_th.jpg" alt="Image hosted by Webshots.com"></a><br>by <a href=http://community.webshots.com/user/2000Triton> 2000Triton</a>

Trying to post some pictures.

 

[Tritonman]

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[RalphVa]

Why would you fertilize when seeding? The fertilizer will burn any new roots the seeds send out. The only thing that will save the seed is a quick watering or rain after seeding, deep enough to wash the fert away from the seed.

Ralph

 

[deereguy]

Since you are planting corn, liquid or dry fertilizer only makes sense, 2" below and 2" beside the furrow of the kernal.

What's wrong with applying a starter fertilizer (18-24-12 or similiar) to any seeding project? Don't you want the roots to grow before the plant does? Or did I forget how a plant grows? Am I missing something??

 

[Farmwithjunk]

Why would you fertilize when seeding? The fertilizer will burn any new roots the seeds send out. The only thing that will save the seed is a quick watering or rain after seeding, deep enough to wash the fert away from the seed.

Ralph

That would be news to ALL us farmers in this world who've grown MILLIONS of acres of corn over the ages. We've been planting with "starter fertilizer" (AKA "pop-up fertilizer") right along side of our seed for decades.

Salts in MOST granular fertilizers is what burns the roots. That's why the accepted way to put down GRANULAR starter fertilizer is to place it an inch or so to one side and slightly below the seed. That slight seperation is more than adaquate.

MOST liquid fertilizers aren't salt based. They can be placed directly in the seed furrow along with the seed without any harm to the seed. "Washing the fertilizer away from the seed" is the absolute LAST thing you want to do, especially at todays ridiculous fertilizer prices. You want to make every ounce of it count. The young plant doesn't have an extensive root system to go find nutrients at first. Fertilizer needs to be close at hand at this stage of the plants life. One of the many advantages of liquid fertilizer is it's ability to be placed right where it's needed, with the seed.

 

[RalphVa]

For the record, fertilizer is not needed to make things grow. Dirt, sunshine and rain do a pretty good job. I rarely use fertilizer in my veggie garden and grow corn every year. Every once in a while, I'll get a wild hair and put some fish emulsion on the rows. Think the last time I did this was maybe 4 or 5 years ago. If you mulch, worms work the mulch and provide worm castings that will fertilize pretty well.

Trees in the forest receive no fertilizer.

Ralph

 

[WarrenF]

For the record, fertilizer is not needed to make things grow. Dirt, sunshine and rain do a pretty good job. I rarely use fertilizer in my veggie garden and grow corn every year. Every once in a while, I'll get a wild hair and put some fish emulsion on the rows. Think the last time I did this was maybe 4 or 5 years ago. If you mulch, worms work the mulch and provide worm castings that will fertilize pretty well.

Trees in the forest receive no fertilizer.

Ralph

The difference is this.....you are not growing for large production. You are growing for your home garden. Now then I suppose the millions of farmers who are growing corn, have been doing it wrong all these many years. Perhaps you should go out on an education tour. Tell these poor souls who grow corn to make a living how really silly they have been.

 

[Farmwithjunk]

For the record, fertilizer is not needed to make things grow. Dirt, sunshine and rain do a pretty good job. I rarely use fertilizer in my veggie garden and grow corn every year. Every once in a while, I'll get a wild hair and put some fish emulsion on the rows. Think the last time I did this was maybe 4 or 5 years ago. If you mulch, worms work the mulch and provide worm castings that will fertilize pretty well.

Trees in the forest receive no fertilizer.

Ralph

"For the record", constant, sustained re-growth of ANY crop will depleat soil of nutrients. Trees in the forest depend on re-cycling of leaves, fallen limbs, decayed plants on the floor of that woods for their supply of nutrients. Nothing is removed from the environment, just recycled back into the soil.

Where crops are grown for food, ect, without replacing the nutrients taken away as the crops are harvested, the soil will eventually become barren and unproductive. The BETTER the crop yields, the more the soil needs to be replentished.

If a relatively low yield is expected, a relatively low amount of fertilizing will do.....for now......

Any of us who've been around long enough can recall when farming was done without much, if ANY fertilizer. Poor yields were the norm, farmland would be rendered almost useless with a few years of neglectful farming practices. Crop rotation practices then included "fallowing" fields where NOTHING was harvested in some years. That "idealistic" sort of poor stewardship of the land would lead to bankruptcy if practiced by farmers today. It may work on a small scale garden with no serious economic reprocussions to the grower. Even todays large scale "organic farmers" use various types of fertilization to turn out a crop.

Not taking proper care of farm land by depleating it's condition is wasteful and disrespectful to Mother Nature even if it's done in natures name.

 

[Tritonman]

Certain crops are more sensistive to liquid fertilizer directly applied to the seed. Corn is a non issue with most of the liquid fertilizers applied at 3-10 GPA. Here in North Dakota 5 gallons of 10-34-0 and some zinc is the norm for any respectable corn grower.

Soybeans on the other hand are more sensitive to starter fertilizer applied directly in contact with the seed. With soybeans generally a 2X2 application is the best. I work with about 50 agronomists in high PH conditions across North Dakota, so my recommendations are based on this area. In general High PH ties up the phosphate so a starter helps that much more.

 

[Tritonman]

Ralph, on your tree analogy you need to remember that the tree roots are growing more all the time and mining the soil of its nutrients/fertilizer, also remember that nutrient cycling happens (leaves, animal waste, decaying plant material). Also keep in mind that different species of plants have different needs. For example native prairie grasses do not respond very much to nitrogen fertilization, a non native grass (like your lawn) responds tremendously.