Think It Through
There has been little doubt that placing GMS on the seed has been the most efficient means of application. But as populations went up, so has the amount being placed on the seed. New liquid fertilizer applicators for planters of all types can now put nutrition wherever you need it, in whatever amount.
A significant number of GMS customers use 4-7 gallons of GMS on the seed as base nutrition, then use different sources of nitrogen as their only additional fertilizer. With increasing awareness over the past couple of decades of the positive effects of GMS on soil biology, is putting it all on the seed the most efficient place?
Consider the picture to the right. The seed has been planted and represented by triangle #1. GMS has been placed on the seed. Consider the triangle the fertilizer zone where moisture and biology has moved the GMS outward and downward. For the sake of clarity, the bottom side of the triangle has been shortened, but in reality, the GMS radiates both deeper and wider.
What if, instead of putting all the GMS on the seed, we were to put half the rate on the seed and the other half 2 by 2? Not only have we given the seed and biology a good start, but now we have created another zone (triangle #3) of partly consumed nutrition by the microbes for the roots to hit. Triangle #2 is another way or zone to put GMS on in a divided fashion, enlivening the microbes under the seed, and when the roots arrive, further enhancing plant development. (The triangle #2 position is difficult to achieve on most planters. Remember the Totally Tubular product does not place the fluid deep enough below the seed to create the triangle #2 position.)
The logic behind this has been in practice by several GMS customers since planter application equipment has improved over the past several years. A longtime GMS customer achieved a yield of 267 bushels per acre in a plot trial using 2.8 gpa of GMS on the seed with the old pipe drop in the triangle #1, and 4.2 of GMS in triangle #2, while applying 10 gpa of 28% on the soil surface at planting and 40 gpa of 28% knifed to the center of the row at 5 inches deep when the corn was 10 inches high, along with two foliar sprays of 2 gpa of GMS.
There is an absolute deluge of products out there with claims of increased biology by feeding it, stimulating it, or adding it (microbes), but this longtime customer figured he could accomplish the same thing by creating a wider zone of biological activity by splitting the application sites of GMS.
The beauty of this is that it worked this past year in the good dirt as well as their poor dirt, as they farm some very low organic matter "ball bearing" sand and clay. Their low organic matter sand and clay soils are very similar to the more weathered southern soils of North America. Even that dirt has shown a nice bump in yield since adding the simple plumbing and an under the seed application knife to their planter.
These GMS customers believe the triangle #2 and triangle #3 positions will give fairly similar results. Also, remember any water added to the GMS will affect the size of the triangles.
In some ways, perhaps this is why an old Amish customer who puts 10 gallons of GMS to the acre on the seed at planting and uses no other fertilizer (he is well limed and some manure) year in and year out produces awesome corn. He uses the old pipe over the seed trench application method which, because of how he mounted it, wiggles back and forth over the seed trench when in motion. Only a small percentage of GMS actually gets on the seed, the rest going everywhere around it (as much as an inch on either side of the seed) feeding more biology for the emerging roots to hit!
Let the farmer conversations and ingenuity about this topic begin!
This is an excerpt from the Spring Growers Solution (2019) written by Matthew Gooding.
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