Complementary Manure & Fertilizer Field Planning

Rick Koelsch Author

03/05/2021 Added

27 Plays

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From "Manure & Fertilizer: Complementary Roles" portion of Land Application Training 2021

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[00:00:00.730]We're gonna wrap up with a little discussion
[00:00:03.420]around kinda pairing up manure and fertilizer
[00:00:07.467]and trying to come up with some complementary uses
[00:00:10.220]of the two.
[00:00:11.310]What do you believe is most true
[00:00:12.590]in your decisions with respect to manure
[00:00:14.830]and fertilizer in a rural crop fertility program?
[00:00:19.410]Do they compete where fertilizer is preferred
[00:00:22.910]or where manure is preferred?
[00:00:26.010]Do they complement each other?
[00:00:28.710]Or do they rarely compete or complement each other?
[00:00:31.550]There are situations where they're gonna compete.
[00:00:33.230]And then I think certainly
[00:00:35.360]from the fertilizer dealers perspective,
[00:00:37.360]they can beat in some ways.
[00:00:39.440]But if we think about the individual characteristics
[00:00:43.900]of commercial fertilizer and manure, there's ways
[00:00:47.370]that we can make these complement each other.
[00:00:49.580]And I think there's gonna be some value
[00:00:51.250]that we see from this.
[00:00:52.480]And so we're gonna spend just a few minutes wrapping up
[00:00:55.690]with this and putting together a plan,
[00:00:59.070]a fertility plan that tries to take advantage of both.
[00:01:03.800]Reason we would like to think about that role of manure
[00:01:09.620]and fertilizer is that they each bring
[00:01:14.060]specific value, specific benefits.
[00:01:17.780]And in particular, I think we need to be recognizing more
[00:01:20.870]and more of that benefit of manure,
[00:01:23.120]'cause manure, if we are using it at a reasonable rate,
[00:01:29.190]a comparable rate to fertilizer,
[00:01:31.970]actually is probably gonna produce
[00:01:34.670]less environmental risk than fertilizer.
[00:01:39.270]And that's primarily because of that organic fraction
[00:01:43.070]of the nitrogen
[00:01:44.750]and also because of the phosphorus in manure
[00:01:48.960]typically is connected with organic particles rather
[00:01:52.610]than being something that dissolves easily.
[00:01:55.610]And so because of that, there can be some advantages.
[00:01:59.510]And so we'd like to take advantage of that manure,
[00:02:02.490]maybe both from a fertility perspective,
[00:02:05.140]but also from a water quality perspective.
[00:02:08.470]But here's that same question.
[00:02:10.450]It was asked in a group of...
[00:02:12.790]We received about 900 responses
[00:02:14.750]to this question from across the country.
[00:02:18.000]And I guess I'm showing just the private sector advisors
[00:02:22.480]and then the crop farmers and their responses to those.
[00:02:25.940]And we were quite surprised three quarters of those
[00:02:30.500]that responded suggested they complemented each other.
[00:02:34.190]And even as we looked at crop farmers that had no history
[00:02:37.710]or very limited history of using manure,
[00:02:41.590]they recognized that complementary role.
[00:02:45.030]And so for those of you that might be thinking in terms
[00:02:47.840]of marketing manure, I think we're already seeing farmers
[00:02:52.820]recognizing the value of manure and recognize its value
[00:02:56.250]in that complementary role.
[00:02:58.780]So let's think about what is the advantage of manure
[00:03:04.040]versus fertilizer in this fertility program.
[00:03:07.630]This graphic, the top part of this, this curve right here,
[00:03:15.270]see and I'm just kinda drawing alongside of it,
[00:03:18.480]that yellow curve indicates the rate
[00:03:23.180]at which the nitrogen is taken up by that corn plant.
[00:03:28.180]And as you can see, starting in mid June
[00:03:31.560]or so in through July, even into early August,
[00:03:35.730]that rate of nitrogen intake is pretty rapid.
[00:03:40.630]In fact, even with our new hybrids,
[00:03:43.810]we're seeing more and more that nitrogen being taken up
[00:03:47.468]later and later in the season.
[00:03:50.680]And so the ability to provide nitrogen connected
[00:03:56.850]with that curve would be the ideal situation.
[00:04:01.530]Now that's what we would like to provide to the crop.
[00:04:05.720]We also want to kind of keep in the back of our mind
[00:04:08.910]the balance of trying to provide that nitrogen
[00:04:12.130]so it's not gonna leach from that root zone.
[00:04:16.090]And the bottom graphic gives us an idea
[00:04:19.380]of that leaching potential.
[00:04:21.250]And you can see here that hump that occurs
[00:04:24.910]in late May, early June has extended early
[00:04:30.160]in the season starts, you know,
[00:04:31.990]as we get those spring rainfall,
[00:04:34.000]hopefully it starts coming here in another week or two
[00:04:37.230]and in through April when there's no growing crop.
[00:04:41.370]So what we would prefer to do is have a period
[00:04:46.770]where there was really very little nitrogen available here
[00:04:51.560]in April, May.
[00:04:53.400]And then starting in June, July, August,
[00:04:58.160]really have the bulk of our nitrogen come available
[00:05:02.310]in that period.
[00:05:03.630]So we've talked about rate.
[00:05:05.870]But now, we're getting at the idea that timing
[00:05:08.700]of the availability of that nitrogen is critical
[00:05:13.120]to ensuring that that nitrogen gets into the crop
[00:05:16.270]and doesn't leach from us into the groundwater.
[00:05:20.110]So keep that in mind.
[00:05:22.170]Now, what is it about...
[00:05:23.960]Why is manure....
[00:05:25.540]Why does manure have value in this kind of a scenario?
[00:05:31.380]And in particular, your feedlot manure, what did we say
[00:05:37.530]about the source of the nitrogen in our feedlot manure?
[00:05:41.780]What's in an organic or ammonium form?
[00:05:45.680]Organic, correct, okay.
[00:05:49.050]And that organic nitrogen really
[00:05:53.730]it is a slow release nitrogen.
[00:05:56.190]I like to call it mother nature's slow release nitrogen.
[00:06:00.680]And it becomes available primarily in that June, July,
[00:06:05.650]August time period as that soil is nice and warm.
[00:06:10.730]So there is real value to our high organic nitrogen sources
[00:06:17.110]because they match up pretty well with our modern hybrids
[00:06:20.780]and their use of nitrogen, June, July, August.
[00:06:25.460]But there is not much nitrogen available to that crop
[00:06:30.760]from that organic source in April and May.
[00:06:34.860]And so that is when our ammonium based fertilizers,
[00:06:39.640]whether they'd be manure that has a high ammonium content,
[00:06:43.250]or commercial fertilizer has a real advantage
[00:06:48.040]is getting that crop going early on.
[00:06:51.230]So here are things to keep in mind about what are some
[00:06:55.610]of the benefits or advantages of one versus the other.
[00:06:58.290]The organic nitrogen that's in manure
[00:07:00.980]and compost, it's gonna become most available
[00:07:04.300]during that summer months, June, July, August.
[00:07:08.040]It's many of our modern hybrids as the lowest risk
[00:07:11.620]of leaching because of the timing when it becomes available.
[00:07:16.020]So that makes it a friendly fertilizer
[00:07:18.830]from a environmental perspective.
[00:07:23.500]Our ammonium nitrogens,
[00:07:25.640]whether they'd be coming from commercial fertilizer
[00:07:28.740]or some of our manures that are higher in ammonium,
[00:07:31.410]such as a swine manure,
[00:07:33.400]they'd become available in the spring.
[00:07:35.310]They need those cool season nitrogen requirements
[00:07:38.240]to get that corn crop started.
[00:07:41.810]They also have the advantage that they're more predictable.
[00:07:44.750]If we put on 100 pounds of ammonium nitrogen,
[00:07:48.240]as long as we keep it into that root zone,
[00:07:50.820]it will have 100 pounds available.
[00:07:53.330]For that organic nitrogen, we made that guess.
[00:07:56.480]Remember that guess of how much was available?
[00:07:59.250]We said about 25% this year, maybe 15% next year, 7%.
[00:08:06.080]Well, those are ballpark guesses.
[00:08:09.370]And so that number may vary.
[00:08:11.930]Warm summer, warm moist soils, warm summer.
[00:08:15.740]It may be higher than that.
[00:08:17.550]In fact, the research is suggesting commonly
[00:08:20.030]it is higher than that.
[00:08:21.815]We get a cool summer.
[00:08:24.300]Well, maybe we're not getting all 25% of that available.
[00:08:27.950]And so we are doing some guessing up here on the organic.
[00:08:31.300]So recognize the strengths and weaknesses
[00:08:34.870]of both of those nitrogen sources.
[00:08:38.880]The literature would suggest that there's some
[00:08:42.730]real advantages of applying manure and fertilizer
[00:08:47.260]in some complementary role.
[00:08:50.490]The poultry industry, which has a manure
[00:08:53.090]that has very similar characteristics to your own,
[00:08:55.830]in terms of inorganic and organic nitrogen has learned
[00:09:00.150]and this is through quite a wide range
[00:09:02.210]of 90 different studies, 866 different observations,
[00:09:07.980]that the peak yields occurred when they used
[00:09:12.800]both fertility products, as compared to inorganic fertilizer
[00:09:17.080]by itself, and as well as compared to the common
[00:09:20.810]or all organic fertilizer, all manure.
[00:09:24.900]And that peak was in the range on average
[00:09:27.400]of an 18% yield increase.
[00:09:30.260]A different study that's been done with all kinds
[00:09:33.190]of manures suggested that when the manure was about 50
[00:09:37.960]to 75% of the crop nitrogen requirement,
[00:09:41.200]it was something in that 10 to 15% yield increase range.
[00:09:46.080]And again, above those when it was all manure
[00:09:49.420]or just fertilizer.
[00:09:51.490]So there seems to be some value in trying to find
[00:09:56.620]that complementary role of manure and fertilizer
[00:09:59.760]in terms of yield, as well as in terms
[00:10:02.460]of protecting water quality.
[00:10:05.500]So some things to keep in mind about
[00:10:09.720]what are those complementary benefits of these two products.
[00:10:14.550]If we're needing something in terms of that early season,
[00:10:18.000]a nitrogen source for that early season crop vigor,
[00:10:21.580]we need an ammonium source of nitrogen.
[00:10:24.280]That can come from some manures, excuse me.
[00:10:28.170]Or it can come from our commercial fertilizers.
[00:10:32.270]So that's the advantage for that early season need.
[00:10:37.660]We would like to see the bulk of that nitrogen showing up
[00:10:40.790]in June and July.
[00:10:42.760]We could get that value from organic nitrogen,
[00:10:46.430]from our manure that's applied pre-season.
[00:10:49.920]It could also come from a fertilizer with an inhibitor.
[00:10:54.210]It's been, could be pre-seasoned applied
[00:10:57.730]or possibly even side-dress.
[00:11:01.140]And then just any high ammonium nitrogen source,
[00:11:06.610]even including manure that has been side-dressed.
[00:11:09.700]These would be ways that we could get that bulk
[00:11:12.520]of that nitrogen available in that June and July period.
[00:11:16.590]And we also need to recognize that this even becomes
[00:11:19.590]more important in our sandy soils,
[00:11:22.520]where our ability to hold that nitrogen
[00:11:25.260]in the root zone is challenged.
[00:11:28.130]And so again, some of the same majors though.
[00:11:30.520]Organic source of nitrogen or an ammonium nitrogen source
[00:11:34.530]with an inhibitor,
[00:11:35.810]or nitrogen applied is during the growing season.
[00:11:39.510]So those are some of the advantages we need to keep in back
[00:11:43.460]of our mind as we put together a fertility program.
[00:11:48.070]So your goal in the next 10 minutes is to come up
[00:11:53.210]with a fertility program that would work well in your farm.
[00:11:59.040]And I'm gonna give you some parameters to work within here,
[00:12:02.770]but you're gonna try to find a program that may blend
[00:12:06.010]the manure and the fertilizer in complementary roles.
[00:12:10.270]Here again, are some of those strengths
[00:12:14.170]that we talked about just a briefly ago.
[00:12:17.960]So if you need to review, those are handy.
[00:12:21.310]And what I'm gonna have you do is put a fertility program
[00:12:25.840]together for a corn crop that's gonna be produced,
[00:12:30.130]or have a yield goal of 220 bushel per acre.
[00:12:33.820]And there's other characteristics that have been put in here
[00:12:37.150]to come up with a fertility plan for this field,
[00:12:41.410]this 220 bushel corn crop.
[00:12:44.480]For if we followed the UNL recommendations,
[00:12:47.220]and that's not a necessity in your fertility plans.
[00:12:51.290]But if you use that as your means of calculating nitrogen,
[00:12:56.040]that 220 would have an expectation
[00:12:58.790]of 299 pounds of nitrogen being required.
[00:13:04.990]After we took out of that calculation
[00:13:08.580]what the credit is from the soil organic matter,
[00:13:12.040]from the nitrogen credit that was in the soil,
[00:13:15.660]from the lagoon credits.
[00:13:16.940]And I didn't give it any here.
[00:13:18.290]It was consuming continuous corn and for more organic
[00:13:22.880]or from irrigation nitrogen,
[00:13:24.730]from nitrate in the irrigation water took in those credits.
[00:13:29.930]We come up with 204 pounds of nitrogen.
[00:13:35.320]That would be the rate that we're targeting, okay.
[00:13:40.400]So I'm gonna ask you to meet that 204 pounds with manure,
[00:13:47.210]and then whatever commercial fertilizers
[00:13:49.970]you would like to use.
[00:13:51.110]And I'm gonna give you four options here.
[00:13:54.900]Here's the feedlot option.
[00:13:57.200]I've already calculated in here what is available.
[00:14:00.870]So we did the same work that we did earlier.
[00:14:04.770]Took the original 16 pounds of organic nitrogen
[00:14:08.240]times the 25% availability.
[00:14:10.420]So now I've got four available.
[00:14:13.100]I'm gonna assume we're gonna not incorporate that manure.
[00:14:16.280]So I don't give any availability to the ammonium.
[00:14:18.820]And you can see the phosphorus and the potassium
[00:14:21.015]in this particular situation.
[00:14:23.700]Or you could use another manure source.
[00:14:26.960]All right, so that's your sources of manure.
[00:14:30.690]I'll let you choose your sources of fertilizer.
[00:14:33.760]And we know we need 204 pounds here of nitrogen net,
[00:14:40.330]and I want you to put together a fertility plan
[00:14:44.200]on that second page at the bottom.
[00:14:48.340]That would come up with that 204 pounds of nitrogen.
[00:14:54.050]You can choose to put your manure and fertilizer
[00:14:57.770]on all pre-plant.
[00:15:00.530]You can do some add or near planting.
[00:15:04.340]If you wanna do some side-dressing
[00:15:05.970]and you have that capability, include that in your plan.
[00:15:10.920]But start our first step would be
[00:15:14.430]to just describe the products you're gonna put on.
[00:15:17.950]Like in the example, the 20 times per acre,
[00:15:20.770]the feedlot solids put on in November.
[00:15:23.960]So describing under the pre-plan, or at planning,
[00:15:27.440]or post-plant, what you wanna use in your scheme.
[00:15:34.520]I'm gonna put on 30 ton per acre of...
[00:15:48.230]Okay, so that's my proposal.
[00:15:56.870]Now once you've done that, let's calculate the organic
[00:16:01.184]and the ammonium nitrogen from the manure.
[00:16:04.990]And in my case, I've got 30 tons times the four pounds.
[00:16:13.930]I've got 120 pounds again, per acre out of my 204.
[00:16:22.820]Zero here and 30 times, what was it?
[00:16:32.310]Times 14, I come up with about 420 pounds of,
[00:16:46.120]420 pounds of P2O5.
[00:16:52.390]And I think I'll just call her good here,
[00:16:54.850]worried about the potassium.
[00:16:58.410]So I've still got to make up some ground here
[00:17:04.912]in terms of my nitrogen.
[00:17:13.865]Not gonna allow me to put things where I want it here
[00:17:15.513]so I won't worry about that, okay.
[00:17:18.510]What were you, what's your reasoning behind the products
[00:17:21.280]that you wish to choose?
[00:17:24.600]Jot those reasonings down here.
[00:17:26.370]I might say, well, my feed lot solids
[00:17:29.170]slow release and great source of nitrogen
[00:17:31.940]in middle of the summer.
[00:17:36.440]I'm gonna need some nitrogen probably at planning time.
[00:17:40.490]Let me stay on.
[00:17:41.500]I'll just put on about, I don't know,
[00:17:43.970]150 pounds of ammonium nitrates.
[00:17:47.330]That's a third nitrogen.
[00:17:49.170]So that would be about,
[00:17:50.500]we'll just put in here about 50 pounds
[00:17:54.560]of right in the product.
[00:17:57.340]But that would be ammonium nitrate.
[00:18:00.630]My case, what did you put in here, if anything?
[00:18:04.630]Post-plant, I'm gonna have to come up
[00:18:06.610]with some more products.
[00:18:07.600]So I might put in another 35 pounds as a UAN, possibly.
[00:18:13.330]That would be about 10 gallons of UAN, my final.
[00:18:16.700]And that would give me my 205 and give me 205 pounds.
[00:18:24.000]So it gives me exactly where I'd wanna be.
[00:18:28.270]So that's my plan.
[00:18:30.870]So I've got a little bit of a problem cause I put
[00:18:33.260]on 30 pounds, or 30 ton per acre.
[00:18:35.650]So I've got 420 pounds of phosphorus to use up.
[00:18:42.570]And up above for that 220 pound corn crop,
[00:18:47.420]it looks like I'm gonna use up about 76 pounds
[00:18:51.110]of phosphate per year.
[00:18:54.610]So I've got five plus years of phosphorus
[00:19:04.380]waitin' for me, right?
[00:19:07.090]So I couldn't return to this field
[00:19:09.900]if I didn't wanna continue to grow that phosphorus level
[00:19:12.660]in that soil.
[00:19:13.493]So I might have to wait five years.
[00:19:16.750]We've come up with plans here.
[00:19:19.260]I hope you came up with a plan.
[00:19:21.930]All I'm suggesting here is that we need to think
[00:19:25.700]in terms of situations that might benefit
[00:19:30.830]from both manure and fertilizer.
[00:19:33.720]And all right,
[00:19:35.040]now let's wrap up here with a couple of comments.
[00:19:41.210]Just some rules of thumb or things to think about
[00:19:44.980]as you're putting together a fertility plan.
[00:19:47.780]And if it's not gonna be entirely reliant upon manure,
[00:19:51.070]probably a good ballpark to aim for is somewhere in that 50,
[00:19:57.519]75% organic nitrogen being kind of a base rate.
[00:20:03.580]You start getting too much above that 75%
[00:20:06.390]and you run into the challenge I ran into.
[00:20:08.910]Applying a lot of phosphorus,
[00:20:10.810]containing multiple years to use that up.
[00:20:14.340]The ammonium nitrogen,
[00:20:16.210]I need to have some of that early in the planning season
[00:20:19.860]for that early bigger.
[00:20:21.660]Could come from fertilizer.
[00:20:23.880]If you had access to a swine farm nearby
[00:20:26.450]that had some high ammonium manure,
[00:20:29.080]I guess that'd be a possibility.
[00:20:31.730]We then might begin to think in terms
[00:20:34.410]of doin' some side dressing
[00:20:36.320]so that we could test the crop during the growing season,
[00:20:39.800]see if that manure really is becoming available.
[00:20:42.640]And then supplementing
[00:20:43.780]with fertigation through the pivot,
[00:20:47.320]fertilizer through a high clearance piece of equipment.
[00:20:51.620]We're even seeing in some places in the country using,
[00:20:56.292]they're knifing in manure, high ammonium content manures,
[00:21:02.290]in that June, late May, early June period.
[00:21:06.980]So there's some options or even doing some of that
[00:21:10.430]into a row crop.
[00:21:12.630]But that gives us some complementary roles
[00:21:16.850]for both the manure and the fertilizer
[00:21:18.800]in this fertility program.
[00:21:22.102]A couple of suggestions that are programs,
[00:21:25.330]that you're getting.
[00:21:28.010]Charlie Wortmann has suggested in his recommendations,
[00:21:34.200]for those that have low clearance side-dress equipment,
[00:21:36.980]he likes to see a program that looks like something
[00:21:39.300]like this, a base manure nitrogen rate
[00:21:43.580]supplementing with 60 pounds of ammonium nitrogen
[00:21:47.230]right at or pre-plant period, and then sidedressing
[00:21:53.940]with a soil or a pre-sidedress soil nitrate test.
[00:21:59.940]When that crop is in the top 12 inches of the soil
[00:22:04.360]and using that soil nitrate test,
[00:22:06.720]then to drive a side dress application in early June.
[00:22:12.510]And this would be where you'd have
[00:22:13.783]low clearance sidedressing capabilities.
[00:22:18.560]Now there a recommendation that he put together
[00:22:22.740]follows this pretty closely.
[00:22:24.190]For high clearance sidedress equipment
[00:22:26.920]or a pivot fertigation, give the base nitrogen rate
[00:22:31.880]the application right at planting.
[00:22:34.860]And then using these canopy reflectance sensors
[00:22:39.860]for in season nitrogen rates that would always apply
[00:22:43.670]a minimum of 30 pounds and above that
[00:22:46.360]based upon what the sensors would tell you.
[00:22:49.460]So these are fertility programs that really allow us
[00:22:54.010]to do some late season checking of that manure
[00:22:57.380]and that organic nitrogen and what's truly available
[00:23:00.780]and then fertilizing accordingly.
[00:23:03.660]So that's kinda what we wanted to share
[00:23:07.720]in terms of trying to come up with these complementary
[00:23:10.560]or recognizing the complementary roles that manure
[00:23:13.500]and fertilizer can play with each other.

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Complementary Manure & Fertilizer Field Planning

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