Feldspar
Member
- Location
- Essex, Cambs and Suffolk
Is that 3kgs of actual boron? Careful you do not mix up a herbicide!
Good point! I will check. I remember there's something in Kinsey's book about the rate of boron that are safe.
Is that 3kgs of actual boron? Careful you do not mix up a herbicide!
now Dr. Feldspar is facing several challenges:Out of interest I had an ask around for prices of different foliar mixes to compare them with the cost of applying products to the soil. Here's analysis of one tailor-made foliar mix with the above tissue test in mind:
3kgsB + 1Kg K + 2Kg MgO + 0.5Kgs Zn = 6.5kgs/ha £19.5/ha
I'm not very experienced with prices for these sorts of things, but that seems quite a lot of money. Thoughts?
now Dr. Feldspar is facing several challenges:
- the plants need to take it up
- hopefully Dr. Feldspar's plants can read
- several of the nutrients are not translocated with the Xylem so how you feed the roots?
I rely do not understand why someone can't follow on just a small area for 3 years the program, re sample each year and put each year 100% of the nee4ded stuff on and after 3 years draw the line and do then the comparison.
Only one example out of many from last year. Hops farmer did sample in late 2'12 a hops field where even his father didn't make a good crop, same to him. Applied 100% of the recommended stuff. In '13, yields where by average 50% down with poor quality, this field was outperforming all the other fields and had normal yields of a normal year with very good quality. Needless to say how many fields he did sample after this. and he is not the only hop grower with this result.
York-Th.
-
Sorry feldspar, that I'm not having a farm. So I keep quiet for the time being.I know you are trying to help, but the above is really not at all useful, and once again your post comes across as a patronising lecture which I find irritating. You are not able to understand why people do things because, in this case certainly, you make assumptions based upon very little knowledge of particular circumstances. Perhaps, as has been alluded to many times before, because you are not having to run a farm on a day-to-day basis, you do not appreciate the difficulty of suddenly ordering and applying a great long list of products. When I spent time last year applying kieserite here and there, I was taking up time when our fertiliser spreader could have been doing other things, and that was only for one product. To do the same with zinc sulphate, manganese sulphate, granular boron, iron sulphate, etc. would have taken up a huge amount of time which we could ill afford in a difficult season.
I think most people who do not form part of the church might see that spending well over 70 £/ha and seeing no discernible difference does not exactly inspire confidence. Once again, you are not writing out the cheques, and you do not see where that money could have been otherwise spent on the farm to better effect. Hell, for that amount I could get each hectare direct drilled several times over. These are not small sums of money.
There is no evidence that I have seen that says that you need to apply a whole raft of nutrients just to raise the levels of Mg in the plant. I put on a vast amount of kieserite "for the needs of the current crop", as the Kinsey recommendation said, and yet nothing happened - as you say, maybe the plants are having trouble reading the recommendation.
I am therefore, for the time being, exploring other options. Foliars have the benefit of being easy to apply and, if one is being lazy, can be supplied ready-mixed, making a quick experiment nice and easy. You cannot do that with soil applied fertilisers in the same way.
@Feldspar - have you done any tissue tests yet this year? If you did one every ten days for the next 7 weeks you should be able to build up an interesting picture.
This is what I started doing two years ago. Often the data is more useful the following year but it should point out anything interesting/ noteworthy. Combined with you soil tests you can build up experience of what is going on.
NRM system of doing it is good. Chuck it in a pre paid bag and post it to them and everything on account/referenced so no faffing about. Post it on sunday night.
Here's a start:
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00103629409369112#.U2PIb4FdVps
Don't look at ratios between nutrients, just look at absolute concentrations? Also, there seems to be two main ways of determining optimal nutrient concentrations, the DRIS system and the CNL system. Interesting too that it notes that the amount of research on this area is pretty scarce.
You are getting there. Or leastways heading in the right direction. But I sure as heck ain't going to give you the answer. Keep at it. I had to.Here's a start:
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00103629409369112#.U2PIb4FdVps
Don't look at ratios between nutrients, just look at absolute concentrations? Also, there seems to be two main ways of determining optimal nutrient concentrations, the DRIS system and the CNL system. Interesting too that it notes that the amount of research on this area is pretty scarce.
@Feldspar this to me is the way that we should be going. Glad I'm not the only one thinking this way!!
Often come up with all sorts of bright ideas but then wonder if I am on the right track or not. That's what I love about coming on here, there's usually someone somewhere with a similar thought process.
I've got this to read tomorrow:
http://eprints.nwisrl.ars.usda.gov/738/1/1170.pdf
and this looks relevant, although you probably can't get the full version:
https://dl.sciencesocieties.org/publications/aj/abstracts/71/2/AJ0710020343
You are working hard on this Feldspar. As a help in my fiddling with this for some decades. If one searches out the data for total mass which are freely available which gives one for instance how much in stems, in pods, in seeds. Then to a an extent do not ask for an opinion. Calculate it back to kg or % mass make your own judgement.