The rain keeps falling in Ontario and all the water-logged soils make it tough to get a good read on how much nitrogen is available to the province’s corn crop.
In this edition of RealAgriculture Corn School, agronomist Peter Johnson discusses whether corn acres need supplemental nitrogen and how much they might need. It depends on a number of factors: soil temperature, soil weight, soil type and how long it sits saturated.
Depending on soil type, under current wet conditions, soils can lose up to five per cent of nitrogen a day, notes Johnson.
Two of the key factors to consider are how much nitrogen has already been applied and how much is available from organic sources. In this video, Johnson explains that growers have to do the math: “If you put on 150 pounds of nitrogen on a clay soil and you got 10 inches of rain and it sits saturated for 10 days – you’ve lost half that nitrogen.” In these kinds of situations, growers will certainly benefit from applying late nitrogen.
Check out the video below for more:
Click here for more Corn School episodes.
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