liquid fert

[catscratch]

The miracle grow made a difference, it just wasn't as dramatic as dry. I can forsee situations for each.

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[Drycreek]

I know nothing about liquid fertilizer except what I've read, but I do know a guy ! Try Grandpa Ray Outdoors, he is a proponent of foliar fertilizers in some cases and sells them. Might have some better prices, might not. I've only bought seed there, but he knows whereof he speaks on food plots, he's a nutritionist.

 

[Nutritionist]

I have sold liquid plant foods for 16 years. I even offer custom blends based on your plant deficiencies. If one takes a scissors cut and sends it to the lab( plant tissue analysis), you can instantly work on improving that symptom. Most progressive farmers now use it and here is what I always pushed it......

People will see added growth and overall plant health improvements. Why i like it as a nutritionist is it helps raise protein levels, mineral levels and pant sugar levels. This helps me balance diets easier with less out of pocket expenses. We always prefer to get nutrition through the plants verses buy out nutrition. Now when we are talking deer, this is one of my tricks to help deer eat the brassicas earlier.

For $5-10 an acre it is a no brainer. Anyone i talked into using plant foods has thanked me. The blends i sell also naturally loosen the soil because i have humics in there.

Most plant foods you see in the wildlife industry are not complete packages and lack some of the essentials. Some are mearly repackaged from another popular company out there.

 

[Smallplot]

If your soil test is good, you do not have to worry about adding small amounts of liquid fertilizer. The cost/gain ratio is largely skewed on small acreage where the goal is for the plant to be eaten by deer. If you were farming and got a 3% increase at harvest per acre and had many, many acres there would be less of a skew. Always watch out for someone trying to sell magic beans, they do not exist. Diverse crop mixes and keeping something growing year around will do more for lowering the fertilizer bill than spraying with a liquid fertilizer.

 

[Doctorbrady]

My reply wasn't aimed at you...not personal at all....a very general statement. Not every farmer or every plotter has access to manure like you and I. Instead, you will find that people take the advice on liquid and forgo common sense applications of dry and/or manure...that is the point of my reply..

Sure Kip Cullers ran AMS etc through the pivot (probably seep tape now) along with 5-10 T of litter on his world record bean patch. I know plenty of high yield guys....and the off the radar top farmers who do everthing with dry spread and come out ahead every year.....I can direct you to them on gov't web pages showing NO subsidy or crop ins in 15 years

Funny, Kip Cullers' world record fields are just down the road from my house (not my farm). I hear that most of the record producing fields are quite small and micro managed for the record books. Harder to do on a large basis, though the science is obviously good and could certainly apply to plot sized areas if you really wanted to invest the time and money for maximum production. I got out of row crops a few years ago when neighbors began planting much of the property surrounding my farm. Now I just take advantage of their hard work and money, and spend my resources on perrenial plots and winter food sources as well as cover. The neighbor's have saved me tons of time and money .

 

[dgallow]

Yes....about 5 ac is the minimum size for yield contests. He uses it as a learning platform....applying some of what he learns to larger acreage. Many 100+ bu SB or 300 bu corn records are grown on part of a large field or a small field of good soil type. Hard to pull those numbers as average over a whole field. It is like an old ranching adage....."It is a lot easier to starve a profit out of a cow than it is to feed profit into her!" Meaning....it is quite easy to get so wrapped up in technological advancement that one loses sight of low input management and/or of time management.

At least you have neighbors disturbing and regenerating land around you. Here...habitat is either overgrazed.....or cattle removed and it is over mature....no row crops or legume hay fields....not very good habitat but deer do okay unless numbers are too high!