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Ray, North Dakota

What is the perfect amount of nitrogen in the soil prior to planting the AG? 80 lbs.? 100 lbs? My soil test showed 26 lbs of N per acre avg, but I will need more. I can get my hands on any dry fertilizer blend I want, so upping my nutrients non-organically will not be a problem.

12/13/2005 1:48:55 PM

Picton,ON (j.vincent@xplornet.ca)

Herbi
You are talking like a guy that knows his way around fertilizer and crop production! if so you will likly confuse a lot of the folks on this site. That being said, and being that I am like minded, I feel some where between 100& 150 lbs / acre available nitrogen is likely enough. Keep in mind that as you rais the OM you will increase the ammount of N available from the soil. The rule of thum is 10 lbs N/1%OM. i.e. a soil with 5% OM will have about 50 lbs N available from the organic material. This gets complicated if you are incorperating volumes of uncomposted Organic material as they require Nitrogen in order to decompose.
My OM is at 8%. I applied an additional 60 lbs/ acre equivilent actual N / acre last year in the form of Ammonium Sulphate. I feel I could have increased that a bit.
I hope this is helpful. E-mail me directly if you want more information.

12/13/2005 7:14:53 PM

Ctpumpkin@optonline.net

120 lbs/acre is enough in most cases so another 100 lbs will do you. Some folks will use Potassium Nitrate as a finishing fertilizer (after fruit set is solid) usually as a dilute weekly overhead. If you choose this approach be sure to subtract that N from the rest.

12/13/2005 9:39:37 PM