Better Understanding Nitrogen Utilization in Corn

00:00 Notice a difference between the corn to my left and the corn to my right. Of course you do. We're gonna tell you about in this, uh, 00:04 video here at Kevin Matthews, Matthews Family Farms Field Day 24 rows of nitrogen only corn plants. 00:11 In this trial, to my right, a bunch of really good looking corn that has not just nitrogen, has the full package, a fertility program engineered 00:20 by Tommy Roach with Natures. Kevin, tell me about the experiment and then I want to hear all about the specifics, 00:26 but what do you got going on? Yeah, so I've got, uh, 24 rows here to your right. It only has, uh, nitrogen in a two by two. Nothing else. 00:35 No infer, no other additives into the two by two, just the 25 gallons of hydrogen, all the foliar, everything after that part is the same. 00:43 So it's just a difference there. So we can see. And then another 24 rows down, I've got my grower standard, and then I'm putting my grower standard against what Mr. 00:52 Tommy has come up with to help improve my ROI to add to my grower Standard. So what's the experiment 00:57 going from here on Tommy Roach? Of course, we did the whole package in furrow two by two, um, foliar, different foliar wide drop. 01:09 We even did, I don't know if, did you just do the last I'll be doing it. Okay. Been two weeks. We ain't got to that yet. Yeah, so, 01:14 So there's gonna be, how many passes on this? Uh, right here? Uh, there'll be five to six, 01:20 Five to six passes. Each one of 'em gets a nature's product. Yeah, I know. It's, uh, always a potassium, 01:25 Always potassium, always micros. Uh, various other things, but remember the, the vast majority of 'em aren't, 01:32 you're not making extra trip. Yeah, that's correct. They're, they're tagging on for the ride. Yeah. 01:36 Goes along with the herbicide pass. Yep. The herbicide pass. So why don't you walk us through each one? You did? 01:40 Yep. So, so when the planter leaves after that, the sprayer, we've got our post emerge pass that we're doing at V three. 01:46 Okay. We wanna do that before we're setting the girth. We don't wanna be messing with it then end. Got it. We also want that energy in that plant 01:52 to set that big girth of year. Love it. Then we go into v around V 10 to V 12 timeframe just prior to tassel, 02:01 and we're putting a big load in there to set that thing up for the pollination period, we want it. Right. 02:08 That's a, that's over the top. That's over the top where the, And then from that point forward we 02:12 do, we're doing wide drops. Yep. During, uh, actually we do a wide drop just about V 14 to V 16. 02:20 Okay. We want to give, we want to just give all that planet needs and switch. And that fertility 02:24 Reproduction, he said that fertility was tagging along when your first wide drop pass, what else is happening? Uh, the first wide drop pass as far as in the crop, 02:32 It, it's just fertility. Yeah, Just fertility. Yeah. Yeah. The other one's had herbicide, the other one's had. And then what about your first fungicide pass? 02:39 Yeah, that's done at the V 10. The V 12. Okay. Okay. I always piggyback something with it. Um, with, on that sprayer. 02:46 So it's not uncommon to be carrying, applying, you know, five, six gallons of products in with 02:53 that at a 15 gallon rate of with water being the carrier. What's most exciting to you about this? 02:59 What do you expect to see? What do you think the person that wants to keep up with this trial is gonna learn from It? So if you, 03:04 if you look at the difference that split right there, uh, or is it because of the things we're adding? 03:10 Or is it because we're making more a better utilization of the nitrogen that you're, you're putting out and I think it's a combination of both. 03:18 Okay. So nitrogen's clearly not enough. I mean, we saw the difference we're seeing and we're seeing on the ears also. 03:23 I mean, I know that we're, but if you walk in here, you're still gonna see a huge difference in these ears from nitrogen 03:28 only to the full package. Yeah. And one thing that really stood out on this plot was when the corn got to V four 03:35 or V three to V four, we got a heavy rainfall vent, saturated soils, uh, several days of it, and it created plant stress that was very noticeable. 03:46 And these 24 rows and some other checks throughout the farm stood out enormously. 03:53 Then when the drought hit, they still, they just like, they never could catch up. They, I mean, they just didn't have a good day when they 04:00 started and they couldn't, they wasn't healthy enough to get over the bad days. What do you expect to see yield difference, 04:05 yield difference that you anticipate? I would say there's at least a good 40 50 bushel yield difference right there. 04:12 So if 50 bushels and $4 corn is $200, a person says, you know what? I love watching these videos, 04:17 but I'm not sure I can justify doing much more than the simple stuff and adding the full kitchen sink is there, I'm guessing you're gonna say, well, 04:24 we didn't spend $200 on this. Well, the beauty about it is if the, if you're in a dry land situation, 04:31 you're doing it in phases. So if you get to the point and you realize that there's no water there, there's no potential you can cut back. 04:38 So you don't have to throw the whole kitchen sink at it, but you got it in your plan to do. 04:42 Yep. And, uh, so you, You can make that decision. V 10, V 14, you can make, you Can usually make a 50 to 60% nail because 04:48 Then with the weather pattern he's had this year, it was really dry early. But once he got to July mm-Hmm. 04:55 It's been raining ever since. So he's been able to, it makes sense to continue to add fertility, to push more yield. Well, 05:04 And using your 50 bush old number at four bucks, that's $200. You don't have $200 excess spend on this. 05:09 It's under, well under a hundred, a hundred difference. Well under, well hundred betweenness. Yeah, Well under A hundred. 05:14 I think we just answered the question. And that's at retail Price and that's wherever You want it. 05:19 Tommy Roach nature's Kevin Matthews at Matthews Family Farm Field Day in K Lamine, North Carolina. In between some raindrops here, uh, courtesy 05:26 of Hurricane Debbie.