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Deer Park, WI

Would like to hear thoughts on how folks manage soil nitrogen levels.

Arguably the most important macro nutrient is also the trickiest to manage. It readily leaches, volatizes, and is gobbled up by soil microorganisms. Many scoff at soil nitrate/nitrogen tests because the value can shift dramatically from the time you collect the sample to the time its reported back.

One university study concluded that for field pumpkin production, values <50lbs/acre benefited from side-dress nitrogen application. Values >50lbs/acre reported no benefit from supplemental nitro. Quite a stretch to extrapolate field pumpkin total productivity to optimizing AG growth, but its all we got.

Too much nitro, we get a healthy, dark green, over-sized salad and poor fruit set. Too little nitro, we sacrifice precious pounds. What to do????

Im a fan of the pre-sidedress nitrogen test (PSNT). A simple, cheap nitrogen soil analysis taken in early-mid june that gives you a snapshot partially through the season. The complication is knowing where the sweet spot is-

11/13/2011 5:44:28 PM

Deer Park, WI

Here's information on the PSNT study by UCONN:

http://www.soiltest.uconn.edu/factsheets/Pumpkins_new.pdf

Running a PSNT is cheap. Agrienergy, the lab Chris mentioned in Pap's post, is a measly $7.00.

http://www.agrienergy.net/docs/lab-information/pricing.pdf

11/13/2011 6:00:25 PM

Owensboro, Ky.

amelio, over several years...what is needed has sorta been figured out,(Balance for sure) by the HH's, and others in growin of AG's!!! How did you figure out what to add, w/out a soil test,(or was a soil test done...would like to see results) to compare? Curious, for sure? Peace, Wayne

11/15/2011 4:03:59 AM