Modifying Starter Fertilizer Placement to Increase Effectiveness

Dr. McGrath will be reporting on his Fluid Fertilizer Foundation sponsored study Modifying Starter Fertilizer Placement to Increase Effectiveness. This is first year FFF has been involved with this project and we are excited to see how this novel research is playing out.

Traditionally, growers have managed fertilizer placement at planting in two dimensions, namely manipulating fertilizer distance from the seed in the horizontal and vertical directions. However, recent advances in fertilizer delivery systems allow producers to manage fertilizer distance from the seed down the row, in the direction of planting adding a third dimension to the question of how fertilizer placement might influence rate decisions. New fluid fertilizer application technologies allow farmers to manipulate fertilizer placement down the row by pulsing fluid fertilizer. Pulsed fertilizer systems allow the user to control the distance of the fertilizer pulse from the seed.

This study seeks to compare continuous starter fertilizer to pulsed starter fertilizer, for both seed-row and offset placement. The goal is to provide growers with information on how this technology interacts with rate and fertilizer source (with varying amounts of salt).

Click here to register for the webinar.