There was a fairly decent turnout at the soil fertility
workshop that was held here at the Extension Office on Friday, March 21. In case you missed it, the workshop featured
Clain Jones who is the MSU Extension Soil Fertility Specialist, who talked
about the importance of soil testing and the role of micronutrients in crop
development and Bart Stevens from the USDA/ARS who gave a presentation on the
research that he is conducting related to phosphorous and sugarbeet production.
There was way too much information presented during the
workshop to try and cover it all but I thought that I would at least hit some
of the highlights and provide links to where some of the information presented
can be found.
o
This website is basically the main hub for all
of the work that MSU is doing in soil fertility. There are quite a few links on the left-hand
side of this page that will take you to pages where you can find more
information about what research is being conducted at MSU related to fertilizer
and nutrient management. Most of the
rest of the links that I provide, you will notice begin by starting at this
website.
o
This page contains all of the research that is
being done related to nitrogen fertilizer and management.
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The last three sites are downloadable,
interactive spreadsheets that allow a person to better understand and figure
out the economics of nitrogen fertilization.
These interactive spreadsheets allow you to adjust the price per unit of
nitrogen, soil organic matter, price per commodity, and other factors to try
and determine the optimum amount of nitrogen to apply for the optimum economic
benefit. The first link is for spring
wheat, the second is for winter wheat, and the last is for spring barley.
o
These two links are to two brand new
publications offered by MSU. Both of
these publications deal with fertilization of forages. The first link is a bulletin focusing
strictly on nitrogen fertilization of forages and the second focuses on
phosphorous, potassium, sulfur and micronutrient fertilization of forages. If you are unable to download these or would
just rather have them as hard copies, we do have copies of both of these
documents here in the office.
