Gage County
1115 West Scott St.,
Beatrice NE 68310
Phone: (402) 223-1384
FAX: (402) 223-1370

News Column

Paul C Hay, Extension Educator

FERTILIZER RESEARCH PAST AND PRESENT

Current University of Nebraska Research is continuing to explore how to best fertilize our crops for top yields, while improving the quality of groundwater and surface water. This column will share some of the research being done including research efforts conducted in Gage County and some of the challenges we have for the future.

Current and past research at the University of Nebraska and other Land Grant Universities is the basis for crop and horticulture fertilizer recommendations. Even farmers when have never taken a soil test on their farm and the insurance salesperson homeowner who just tells their lawn company to take care of it are guided by this research. There is lots of marketing, flash and salesmanship, but long term company success is rooted in factual based research has been the guiding principle for decision making.

The Nebraska Soil Fertility Project is working to improve understanding of fertility recommendations for today's high yield corn production. They are focusing on plant densities, nitrogen rates and application methods, phosphorus fertility, and carbon mineralization.

Gage County farmers Lawrence Gronewold and Mark Pretzer have been cooperating with Dr Charles Wortmann on a project looking at the nitrogen contribution of soybeans to the milo crop. Kansas State research has indicated a higher nitrogen contribution for milo than corn. While to study is not done, results thus far show more nitrogen available than current 45 pound contributions used in current recommendations, but less than Kansas research has shown.

Most of the lime research was done many years ago. While it still sound research, changes in cropping programs like no-till are a bit beyond the scope of the research data. Dr Wortmann did some studies of liming effect in no-till including several Gage County farms. His results show that surface applied lime in no-till corrects the pH of the soil at about ½ inch per year. This is slower than tillage incorporated lime. There are significant trade-offs in both systems. For numerous reasons including investment for return, farmers should consider applying lower rates of Ag lime more frequently, i.e. apply 1 ton per acre every five years versus 2 tons every ten years.

Dr Roy Spaulding has been working on ways to keep the citizens of Central City smiling. By injecting ethanol around the well field area he has reduced the nitrate level of the city wells from 40 ppm to 8 ppm, from 4 times the federal maximum standard to an acceptable rate. No none of the alcohol gets into the water. It's all used for food for soil bacteria who change the nitrate into nitrogen gas like our air.

Recent research in Iowa has documented nitrate movement in soil which verifies what we have suspected. Researchers have found nitrates just reaching the 70 foot groundwater aquifer which were part of high nitrogen fertilizer application studies done in 1969-1974. Nitrates don't get to the water table fast, they don't move far from home and they don't go away fast either.

View other Gage County News Columns & News Letters: http://gage.unl.edu/news/news.htm

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Extension is a Division of the Institute of Agriculture and Natural Resources at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln cooperating with the Counties and the United States Department of Agriculture.
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