Nitrogen and Water Management

University of Nebraska – Lincoln Author

08/31/2020 Added

55 Plays

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Jason Bode, Farmer Hershey Nebraska shares their farming operations success with using technology and application timing to improve nitrogen use efficiency.
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[00:00:09.340]So Jason, tell us a little bit
[00:00:10.760]about your operation.
[00:00:11.850]You know, part of a family farm,
[00:00:14.910]just West in our plot here around Hershey.
[00:00:18.402]I'm really fortunate to be part
[00:00:19.640]of a good group of people.
[00:00:22.620]A lot of really talented people on the team.
[00:00:25.370]We're all crops.
[00:00:27.520]There's no livestock in there.
[00:00:29.070]So we're, we're 50% corn, 50% soybeans every year,
[00:00:32.420]which does change nitrogen program a little bit compared
[00:00:35.720]to maybe a few other people,
[00:00:36.740]but that's what we're working with
[00:00:38.170]and that's where we've decided
[00:00:39.880]to go with our crop rotation.
[00:00:43.240]So we're focusing today
[00:00:44.840]on technology and data to make decisions.
[00:00:48.080]Tell us what your nitrogen management program is,
[00:00:50.790]what kind of data and technology you use
[00:00:52.570]to make those decisions.
[00:00:54.380]So, generally speaking
[00:00:56.340]with our nitrogen management program,
[00:00:58.563]we want to push the application date
[00:01:02.980]as far back as we can,
[00:01:04.740]in terms of when the crop is going to need it.
[00:01:06.800]We live in a really weather-prone,
[00:01:09.480]wind and hail area here,
[00:01:10.690]kind of right east of the southern reservoir.
[00:01:12.950]And the further back in the calendar,
[00:01:15.450]and the further back in the crop development stage,
[00:01:17.330]we can push that application,
[00:01:19.820]it gives us an opportunity to respond
[00:01:22.090]to weather events, both good and bad.
[00:01:24.710]There's years we have really good growing seasons
[00:01:26.890]and we need to adjust to that.
[00:01:28.730]It also gives us a lot of flexibility
[00:01:30.350]to scale down if we have a weather event.
[00:01:34.380]But generally speaking,
[00:01:36.480]we have started using our organic matter zones
[00:01:41.520]and then high rate scripts without our communities
[00:01:44.570]to really help us define and dial in
[00:01:47.960]how the crop is responding to the weather that year,
[00:01:50.980]what kind of mineralization we're getting.
[00:01:53.606]It really gives us an opportunity
[00:01:55.430]to really look at what's going on that year
[00:01:58.190]and what do we need from a nitrogen program?
[00:02:00.740]So you mentioned that organic zones,
[00:02:02.570]having organic matter zones--
[00:02:04.148]Sure.
[00:02:04.981]How do you identify that?
[00:02:05.814]So we started what they call optic mapping
[00:02:09.680]our fields back in 2014.
[00:02:11.840]It's a technology where we shoot an infrared light down
[00:02:19.180]in the soil and measure reflectance back
[00:02:20.880]and we get really good relative maps
[00:02:24.580]of our organic matter zones within our field.
[00:02:27.170]The point is maybe not necessarily
[00:02:28.670]that we get the absolute perfect number back
[00:02:31.900]from that system,
[00:02:32.733]but we get where the wealth of zones are at,
[00:02:34.510]we get where our high OM zones are at,
[00:02:37.130]and we get where our lower OM zones are at.
[00:02:40.470]And that's really helped us on the nitrogen end.
[00:02:43.123]If you think about what one percent OM is,
[00:02:47.040]that's generally good for about 40 pounds
[00:02:49.150]of mineralization in the average year.
[00:02:52.450]In a year like this,
[00:02:53.550]where we've been kind of warm
[00:02:55.680]and then obviously wet from the irrigation,
[00:02:57.560]but not so wet that we're leaching,
[00:03:00.040]you could probably count on
[00:03:01.260]a little bit more mineralization
[00:03:03.620]yet out of that high OM area.
[00:03:06.240]Still probably need to be about the same
[00:03:07.640]on the low OM area, but really trying
[00:03:09.720]to let that mineralization drive
[00:03:11.802]our higher OM zones.
[00:03:15.480]And so as we get these relative areas
[00:03:19.220]within a field, we would probably
[00:03:20.800]typically break it down from a fertility standpoint
[00:03:23.640]in just a real simple high, medium, low zone.
[00:03:27.485]So a three fertility zone,
[00:03:31.230]obviously with plant populations,
[00:03:33.020]we might be maybe more of a four to five
[00:03:36.100]to maybe even a six zone,
[00:03:37.890]depending on how specific things are within the field.
[00:03:41.160]And then we would take
[00:03:42.530]what the industry calls is a high rate strip.
[00:03:47.160]We go out and put that in when the corn's maybe
[00:03:48.980]just a couple of inches tall.
[00:03:50.210]So what we're trying to do with that strip then is,
[00:03:54.885]let the plant know in an unrestricted nitrogen
[00:03:59.100]and in an unrestricted sulfur mode,
[00:04:01.500]obviously, because we mix those together
[00:04:03.960]even in the high rate strip.
[00:04:06.750]So again, an unrestricted mode,
[00:04:09.040]what's its plant growth look like?
[00:04:10.300]What's its ear development look like?
[00:04:13.500]And then as the corn gets to say,
[00:04:16.240]chest to shoulder high
[00:04:17.810]and really the technical zone there is about V10,
[00:04:21.180]you can really see the development
[00:04:24.190]of that high rate strip show up
[00:04:25.580]in either an arrow imagery,
[00:04:28.300]a satellite imagery or in our case,
[00:04:31.090]we actually go out with a handheld
[00:04:33.160]NDVI camera and check that zone.
[00:04:36.490]So, the high rate strip within that zone
[00:04:40.682]say in the high, and then outside of the high range strip
[00:04:43.365]in the high OM, and we can compare
[00:04:46.730]how are our plant growth is happening there.
[00:04:49.300]And this year there was not a lot of difference
[00:04:51.310]between the high rate strip and the rest of the field,
[00:04:55.538]even in the lower OM zones,
[00:04:57.790]you really had a hard time finding it.
[00:04:59.460]You really needed to know where it was.
[00:05:02.710]However, back in 2019 and 2018,
[00:05:05.390]where we had the really large grain events,
[00:05:07.460]it was really easy to see and gave us a real good definition
[00:05:11.120]of what we had to do from a catch up standpoint.
[00:05:14.190]Great.
[00:05:15.150]What's your application look like?
[00:05:17.700]How much pre-plant?
[00:05:18.630]How much with the planters like this?
[00:05:21.664]You're getting the rate you write, is always a mystery.
[00:05:26.230]So in our corn and soybean rotation
[00:05:28.220]that I talked about,
[00:05:29.640]we're starting probably
[00:05:30.730]in a little bit stronger position
[00:05:32.030]because all of our corn is going into soybean ground
[00:05:34.680]and then what's really fortunate,
[00:05:36.120]when we started this in 2014,
[00:05:37.790]and really carried through into 2015 to 2016
[00:05:40.280]to have Dr. Schafer at the research center,
[00:05:44.090]help guide us through this starting process.
[00:05:47.460]Just really got lucky
[00:05:48.500]that there was somebody 15 miles away.
[00:05:50.520]So we have dialed back our earlier corn program.
[00:05:56.760]I think a lot of the industry
[00:05:57.880]for a long time thought you really needed,
[00:06:00.113]maybe 140 pounds out there to get it to even to V6.
[00:06:03.920]So in ours, again, we're starting in soybean ground,
[00:06:06.840]but that nitrogen probably isn't available early either.
[00:06:09.920]So from the planter to about that shoulder high.
[00:06:14.330]So V10, we've got about 90 pounds on.
[00:06:17.300]In the larger rain years
[00:06:19.750]where we get those big flushing rains,
[00:06:22.070]that's really all we want to risk is 90.
[00:06:24.440]And that's probably not enough
[00:06:25.730]to get us to a V10 in those years.
[00:06:28.880]And this year where we didn't get any flushing rain,
[00:06:31.030]got us in great shape.
[00:06:32.580]If you can see the corner behind me here,
[00:06:34.370]we're lacking nutrients here at all.
[00:06:37.290]So we were 90 pounds, like I said,
[00:06:39.040]to about shoulder high.
[00:06:41.040]And that's kind of scary, 'cause it does tend
[00:06:43.020]to go against a lot of the industry
[00:06:45.940]methodology of you got to have it there at V6
[00:06:49.010]and keep it going along the way.
[00:06:50.680]But it's just worked out for us.
[00:06:52.860]We get paid a lot of the same ways
[00:06:55.240]that every other farmer does, right?
[00:06:56.810]We wanna cash green checks and write small input checks.
[00:07:00.990]And it's just worked out to skinny that back.
[00:07:04.870]And then from that V10 is when we decide
[00:07:09.040]how hard we're going to hit it
[00:07:11.291]and how fast we're going to hit it.
[00:07:13.400]Some of our rougher fields
[00:07:14.970]where we really don't feel like
[00:07:16.800]we should go in with a wide drop machine,
[00:07:19.060]we will fertigate that,
[00:07:20.700]but we probably won't start till we're up there
[00:07:22.920]around that shoulder high.
[00:07:24.270]Just don't put the nitrogen at risk
[00:07:28.136]to a big rain flushing event.
[00:07:29.260]And it just seems the plant doesn't need it yet.
[00:07:32.620]It really needs it from that shoulder high on,
[00:07:34.996]obviously all the way through grain fill.
[00:07:38.020]A lot of industry metrics show
[00:07:39.730]that it still takes up, roughly 35, 37% post-tassel.
[00:07:45.910]So we really need to keep
[00:07:46.940]that plant fed later is what we found.
[00:07:50.410]Now in our normal fields,
[00:07:52.860]we'll go in with a wide drop machine
[00:07:54.690]when the corn is about chest to shoulder high,
[00:07:57.260]right at that V10 10 to V12,
[00:08:00.182]a lot of Dr. Schafer research
[00:08:01.015]said we really needed to be there by V12,
[00:08:03.220]absolutely by V14.
[00:08:05.810]So that 10 to 12 is when we can get the sensory data
[00:08:08.720]back from our high rate strip and our OM zones.
[00:08:12.370]Get scripts written, get it loaded in the sprayer
[00:08:15.131]and get it executed and have it there by V12.
[00:08:17.580]Great.
[00:08:18.901]So you mentioned the NDVI camera,
[00:08:19.820]that you go out into the high rate strip.
[00:08:21.420]Any other technology sensors you like to use?
[00:08:25.210]We absolutely use a satellite imagery
[00:08:27.570]to help us check that high rate strip as well.
[00:08:30.110]I will tell you to the human eye,
[00:08:32.640]we can't find the high rate strip as well
[00:08:34.560]as really any imagery program's gonna do,
[00:08:37.250]whether it's going to be satellite
[00:08:38.650]or whether it's gonna be air.
[00:08:41.341]Certainly drones gonna to pick it up really well.
[00:08:43.853]And that's the other kind of trigger,
[00:08:45.124]If we see that high rate strip showin' up
[00:08:47.230]in an imagery system,
[00:08:49.050]even if the corn's not V10,
[00:08:50.420]we know we need to be getting there
[00:08:51.860]and getting either our full program on,
[00:08:54.940]or at least a supplemental program on
[00:08:56.590]until we can get there with the wide drops.
[00:08:58.250]And really the point with the wide drops is
[00:09:01.810]to really variable rate.
[00:09:02.800]And that's what's paying the bills here is, you know,
[00:09:07.470]where I talked about the 40 pounds
[00:09:09.267]of band in the higher OEM area.
[00:09:12.320]And then this year, it kind of appears,
[00:09:13.930]we're probably gonna get more of a 60, 70 type
[00:09:16.220]of bang out of that.
[00:09:18.000]We'll have a big range with wide drop applicator
[00:09:20.630]and in our highest yielding zones
[00:09:22.240]we're not putting on that much nitrogen.
[00:09:25.350]Really only 180, 190 pounds total
[00:09:29.510]to get super high yielding corn.
[00:09:32.620]And then the inverse is true
[00:09:34.179]on our lower OM zones as well.
[00:09:37.120]We're actually putting on more nitrogen and more sulfur.
[00:09:40.840]And we're bringing up the floor
[00:09:42.350]on those lower OM areas,
[00:09:43.970]those spots that have not been your high yielding zones.
[00:09:49.680]And I've always been frustrated
[00:09:52.047](wind blowing over voice)
[00:09:53.670]for just trying to bring up the floor
[00:09:55.190]in those lower yielding zones.
[00:09:56.720]So we've been focusing
[00:09:58.030]on nitrogen but irrigation
[00:09:59.450]we need to also focus in this conflict.
[00:10:02.190]You do recommend irrigation decisions.
[00:10:04.300]So we're a little lower tech really
[00:10:06.640]on the irrigation decisions side of things.
[00:10:09.200]And that's not necessarily by design,
[00:10:12.210]haven't been a conscious decision there to be lower tech.
[00:10:15.597]We do have have accent controllers
[00:10:18.310]on all of our pivots
[00:10:19.620]and probably the biggest management thing
[00:10:22.070]that we do there is we use those
[00:10:25.030]to equalize our water application programs.
[00:10:28.700]So if we have a 700 gallon-a-minute well,
[00:10:30.877]got a 950 gallon-a-minute well,
[00:10:32.530]we need to run those different hours.
[00:10:34.720]And so say we want to put on an inch and a half this week,
[00:10:37.670]we'll set up the accent systems
[00:10:40.860]to auto-start and auto-stop.
[00:10:43.180]So, we get the water on,
[00:10:45.490]both in the lower gallons
[00:10:46.700]and in a higher gallons area.
[00:10:48.730]And then beyond that, we don't use water probes.
[00:10:52.370]We tend to be more of a fan of getting out,
[00:10:54.949]walking around the field,
[00:10:56.116]just seeing what we've got going on.
[00:10:57.350]That causes us to do a few other things.
[00:10:58.920]We'll find other things that are going on with our crop.
[00:11:01.380]You know, we'll be doing mushroom and cutworm scout
[00:11:03.390]and we'll be doing other things
[00:11:04.540]while we're out there walking around and looking around.
[00:11:07.410]So admittedly, we're a little bit lower tech
[00:11:08.970]on our irrigation side,
[00:11:09.960]but the scheduling has been really good
[00:11:11.680]to be able to auto-start on auto-stop
[00:11:14.240]and really control what we're putting
[00:11:16.557]on for water that week.

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Nitrogen and Water Management

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