How Much Does Potassium Improve Corn Yields? Key Findings from Plot Trials

00:00:00 Hey y'all. Danielle Venable here. So we are out here harvesting our agri liquid plots Today what we have 00:00:05 that we're comparing is we compared using agri liquids product capitalized in our two by two with planting, we used a rate of five gallons. 00:00:14 So what we're looking at here is each variety's response to potassium, and that's what the product capitalize is, 00:00:21 is a potassium product. Really, once we planted it, we've looked for visual differences throughout the year. 00:00:27 Haven't really seen that much visual difference, but we're hoping that we'll see a difference in the yield. We pulled some ears here so that we can see, 00:00:34 um, what we're looking at. There's not any difference in the rounds that we have on the ears. 00:00:40 There's 16 on each of 'em except for this one has 14. So we'll see if that makes a difference in the yield at the end, we try to get a fair representation, 00:00:49 walked out in the field and pulled a ear every 10 and then just randomly picked outta three years and stuck one up here for you to see. 00:00:56 So we'll see here in just a little bit what the yield is when we get finished harvesting and then hope to bring that to you 00:01:02 and have some more information if there's a difference in the variety response to the potassium. 00:01:07 Our goal with agri liquids plot this year was we wanted to see how we could influence the yield by adding potassium at planting, maybe decrease nitrogen, 00:01:16 increase nitrogen, uh, you know, what, what's going on, what do we need in that two by two program. So we left our infer as as it was and we actually went 00:01:28 and, uh, we planted 24 rows between the two different fertility plots and with no infer whatsoever, just 24 s nitrogen, 00:01:39 nothing else added. We was at 258.81 bushels right here with these two ears and you can tell they're not as quite as good as others. 00:01:48 Now these ears have been harvested around 12 days now. So they, we've let 'em shrunk down and what we'll do is get a true test weight on 'em without 00:01:55 going through a commercial dryer. So we'll get our test weights on these as well and it's pretty impressive. 00:02:02 The weights we're seeing so far. What we done was went with uh, pioneer 1511 YHR, which is a white cobbed corn 00:02:09 that is a really good corn for us. We really like that variety. It's 115 day maturity corn. We planted 24 rows without the potassium, 00:02:18 24 rows adding only five gallons of capitalize. We pulled the 10th year, then we went 10 more stalks, pulled the next year and done 00:02:27 that at random throughout the field. And this is actually a pretty good ear on this one. The day we picked 'em, they wouldn't even fit in this slot. 00:02:36 They was swelled up so big at 22, 20 3% moisture of course we're under 15 now with 260.5 bushels per acre without adding anything. 00:02:49 That's basically my grower standard right there. That's what I would do on my farm. Then Dagara liquids team had me add five gallons 00:02:57 of capitalized to my tub or two. So that brought us from a 25 gallon rate of nitrogen till we went to a 30 gallon rate. 00:03:05 So we still got the same amount of inn on this. On each of these, what we seen was on this variety, we picked up 19 bushels adding five gallons of capitalized. 00:03:17 And this was not a strip trial, this was over. Um, this was about an acre and a half run is what we've done on each 24 rows. 00:03:26 So we go to our pioneer 1608 YHR, which is not really a go-to variety for high yield environment irrigated corn. 00:03:34 It's a good corn. We grow it on some dry land marginal ground, but it's normally not one I would put there, but we wanted to see what kind of response we could get 00:03:45 if it even mattered on what variety it was. So oddly the yields went way down. It's very noticeable. These are like 14 row ears. These are 18 row ears. 00:03:55 Big difference there. Near, near the kernel count we're at 202.2 bushels without any additional capitalize or or fertility. 00:04:06 This is just my grower standard. Then we added five gallons capitalize and we was at 235.65 bushels. 00:04:14 That's nearly a, I mean that's over a 33 bushel increase. And remember, our soils are naturally low in potassium, 00:04:21 but on this particular farm we use a lot of poultry litter and I did not expect to see this type 00:04:27 of difference in the yield because when you look at our soil samples, the potassium's not really our limiting factor on there. 00:04:34 I mean, we got, we got this farm built up really, really strong. So let's go to one of the new varieties, which is a pioneer 00:04:43 17 6 7 7, uh, YHR five digits, zip code corn without. We was at 220.6 bushels an acre and it is pretty obvious it's not quite 00:04:56 as good as the width. Width. We was at 2 43 0.64. Again, these ears reported at random. So again, we seen 23 bushel yield increase. 00:05:09 So we went from a 19 bushel yield increase with one variety, the not so racy horse variety, more 00:05:17 of your drought standard, uh, you know, your dry land, tough situation, variety. It actually seen a 33 bushel, 00:05:24 a really good river bottom corn. I call it a high, uh, a good quality hybrid. I've had a lot of luck with, 00:05:30 even though the yields was way off from 1511, but we was at 23 bushels. But let's go back and really look at this 00:05:37 whole scenario right here. And you know, we was at this pioneer 1511 with no in, with no infer, just nitrogen only. 00:05:46 Nothing else with it was 2 58. So when I added my in for a program that I do, I was a little better in two bushels better. 00:05:57 So that might not have actually paid me anything in that side by side test. But then look, when we added the potassium, 00:06:04 we went up 21 bushels from the check beside it that had no in furrow. So the takeaway from this is, yes, varieties are influenced 00:06:14 by additional potassium in Piedmont, North Carolina. We know on our farms we're seeing it. We've again went across a lot of other acres 00:06:23 and done similar trials. We're harvesting that corn now, but I'll tell you, riding the sprayer across all of it, 00:06:29 it was, it was actually noticeable where the potassium was added, the plants was healthier. We had broader leaves. 00:06:35 Heavier leaves, and it was, it was quite interesting, the differences in it. But I hope you can take this information back to your farm, 00:06:44 do some trials and see what you can do on it, and keep a few of these ears from your test plots or dry 'em down and get a true test weight 00:06:53 like we do right here. Yeah, they're not as bulky and shiny as they would be if they had just come off. If we'd just pulled 'em off the stalk, they would, a lot 00:07:01 of 'em would barely fit in here and you'd have to push 'em up to hold 'em in there. But we've got 'em dried down. Good. 00:07:07 Um, and it's really gives you a good comparison and you get a really true test weight on the quality of the corn that you have. 155 00:07:14.415 --> 00:07:15.245