I got a phone call from Jerry in Iowa yesterday. I called him back today and he reminded me why I do this. It is not only therapuetic to me, but to others, also.
I write to give you encouragement. That goes for Jerry and everyone else reading this blog. I encourage you to give me topics and ask questions! Jerry has been reading for awhile and we know a lot of the same people so we talked about almost everything I've written here in 4 years. I ask Jerry and all readers to go back and read the older blogs, they are still current today! Some things have changed because we learned more and other things haven't, we just need to put them into practice more.
One thing we did talk about was this calcium, nitrate, sulfur relationship. We need to try the proven programs and experiment a little and find out what works best for us. I still don't have a constant source of ammonium nitrate so I am fudging a lot. That is why I went to Midwest Labs, because the popular Mehlich III soil test results were confusing me. The numbers have too many fudged numbers in them because of that quick and dirty soil test. I like the slower, higher priced extraction method better.
I've not seen anything more effective for the dollar or the effort than Jeff's 2 gallon of liquid calcium nitrate applied 2 inches off the row with 8 gallons of structured water. The farms that switched to that one little idea reported 19 bushels more corn per acre.
Thanks Jerry for the encouragement back. That will keep me going awhile and I hope to see you before the Farm to Plate Conference in Riverside, Iowa December 10-14.
Today's picture is 3 years ago today. There isn't any corn around here that size today but unlike some of the midwest we do have it planted.
Ed Winkle
I guess I should be thankful that it is easy to source ammomium nitrate in missouri.
ReplyDeleteWhen I talked to Kieth the other day I mentioned that everyone around here is complacent with there yields. Nobody around here spreads gypsum and if I didn't go to the terminal and get my fert I'd have to special order ams. He said we are in the 1% that are willing to try things out side the box.
If you don't put the info out there how are courious farmers going to find the information if you keep it to yourself? There is no reason to reinvent the wheel is there?
I am glad you got to talk to him. I am glad my notill mentor sent me to his place 13 years ago.
ReplyDeletePersonally, sometimes I just get tired of putting myself out there. It is refreshing to see you and others get a little bit of good out of this blog.
Ed
Ed, you need to remember that the more narrow the subject matter, the smaller your audience will be. Since your primary subject is commercial farming, you've automatically cut your audience to less than three percent of the population. The bottom line is write about what you enjoy and/or tell folks what they need to know. Either way, SOMEBODY is benefitting.
ReplyDeleteGorges, email me at edwinkle at cinci dot rr dot com
ReplyDeleteEd Winkle
Ed , thank you I appreciate and enjoy your insight-kevin -Ontario
ReplyDelete