With a good rain coming this weekend, we’ve a last ditch Top-Dress opportunity.
Most crops are beyond a staging to see a major yield response as Yield Potential has been set already in those plants. But reaching this Yield Potential may still be influenced if you’ve experienced Nutrient Leaching due to excessive rainfall since seeding those early crops.
Later crops have better potential to increase Yield Potential, but you must consider the chance we delay maturity by attempting those extra bushels (ie, a May 28th seeded crop probably doesn’t have enough growing season to hit 55 bushels).
Also consider your Rotation and the fact weather may change. If we try to add 5-10 bushels and don’t get the timely rainfall needed to capture those bushel, we may leave 20lbs of extra N on a Pulse crop that doesn’t want or need it next year (Canola before Durum is a good candidate for Top Dressing moreso than Durum before Lentil – plus at 90c/lb Nitrogen, more $12 Canola bushels makes more sense/cents than more $7 Durum bushels).
If you’ve had an acute Leaching issue and already used a Foliar Feed product to kickstart the crop, you may still need to throw a few more pounds of actual N/S to ensure the roots tap into something to relieve the stress as the foliar feed product wears off.
Call/Text/Comment if you have any questions or would like a specific recommendation for your area.
