00:00:06
So phosphorus to me is a very important nutrient. If you look at the photosynthetic cycle within a plant, which all these plants,
00:00:13
corn, so I don't care what you're doing. Even the plants, the weeds on the ground here in front of me, all use sunlights, convert to energy for their life.
00:00:22
So phosphorus grows roots, builds energy, right? So we need that in that plant and we also need it because most of the times in the early season,
00:00:30
that's a cool wet environment. That's when you can get the purpling. It's harder to pull phosphorus up at the
00:00:35
beginning than it is any other time. Now, us out here where I am out here in Maryland, we have a nutrient management plan.
00:00:42
So I only get to put on a certain amount of phosphorus. So what I do is I put some of it up front, just enough to get me by, to get me going, build that root system,
00:00:51
get a plant full of energy, and start building those roots around. So I'm trying to build that into that plant,
00:00:57
but I'm not gonna put all of it up front. Keep in mind, 75% of the needs of phosphorus in a plant's life are
00:01:04
in the reproductive stages. And sometimes pho phosphorus ain't very mobile in the soil to begin with.
00:01:10
Plant has to go search for it, and it can get tied up pretty easily. Calcium, iron, aluminum could all bond
00:01:17
because of the charges to phosphorus. So we're trying to find ways to make it more available. We make sure we have enough phosphorus by testing it.
00:01:24
Uh, so we'll do test tissue testing, soil testing. We want to know how much the soil's giving us and how much the plant's taking up.
00:01:31
That's what we focus on with phosphorus, is making a more plant available when we need it, which is late season. Typically,
00:01:37
Purpling this late, late season like that, that can be a real bad yield robber in my mind. 75% of its needs are in the reproduction.
00:01:47
And let's be honest guys, you gotta remember something. We're building these plants. They don't need to be super sexy all the time,
00:01:55
especially in the vegetative stages because we're not selling vegetation, we're not selling biomass, we are selling grain,
00:02:02
and that phosphorus gets fed right into that. We're trading nutrients that we put on for pounds. We put into that. That ear
00:02:11
To me, from what I've seen, is a lot of other deficiencies. Mask can mask each other.
00:02:16
So we really rely on our sampling to tell us where we're at, because sometimes I get a tissue sample
00:02:21
and the plant looks gorgeous and green, but our phosphorus is low. And then we can have a great plant,
00:02:27
but our ears aren't filling like they want to. And that's phosphorus related as well. What you'll see in a corn crop, like you know, like mine
00:02:34
behind us, this corn is actually at 2,500 gdu right now. Still black. Green still doesn't show any deficiencies, so
00:02:44
that means that I've met all my requirements all the way through the season. That's a good thing about spoonfeeding.
00:02:50
We have these abilities to do that. That's why I spoonfeed phosphorus, 00:02:54.325 --> 00:02:55.525
