Manganese

[Dicky.A]

Hello
1st post here so bear with me.
Bit of background. Just taken over spraying from the old fella. Farm sand land severely manganese difficient.
Agronomist sends a powder product. Nutrell fast mix master Mang and recommends a wetter (kantor) costs about £9/ha per pass. 30% manganese 45% sulphur trioxide 2% copper 0.33% magnesium also contains wetters and suffregents. Spray at 2kg/ha and 0.1l kantor. As I understand you can buy manganese in an ibc for about 50p/l spray at 4 - 5l/ha £2-£2.50 a pass. Asked aggronomist why we using a product that's so expensive answer- "it's sufficient to use a product with wetters and surfregents to get penetration into crop at this time of year also copper and magnesium help with getting manganese into crop" so why use kantor. "To give it as much help as possible".
My question to anyone willing to help is, is the extra cost worth it or am I just been sold a white elephant!

 

[franklin]

Bit unfair to compare the powder with a straight spray of manganese as it has loads of other stuff in it.

Kantor is about £110 for a 5lt tub. So your 0.1 of that is costing you £2.20 per hectare.

Every little helps though. I'd dump the Kantor, unless you want to try some part fields as a trial. Switch to a cheaper manganese if you want, but I would suspect you will be copper deficient too. Can always do a few tissue tests and see if there is actually any real need or now.

 

[BenB]

I am usually not in favour of judging other people's agronomy via the forum...but a wetter with Manganese/trace elements....seriously?!

Edit: I see the Fastmix products are already pre-formulated with all the wetters it needs...

 

[rob1]

does your man work for a firm beginning with A ? Have been advised in the past to use Mn as a wetter so cant why it needs kantor

 

[robbie]

I'd ditch the kantor that's a ton of barley saved straight away.
When I've used cheap powdered mn in the past I've used enhance/exchange (can't remember which) which is dirt cheap.

I'm on very deficient sand land. I buy ibc of mn in ibc's mag in 205 drums and cu and zn in 5lt cans and then mix up what I want when it's needed, everything gets 2-3lt ha mn in with every spray pass 2lt mag at t1 and t2 and 0.5lt ha cu and 0.25lt ha zn at t0 and t1

 

[Brisel]

Ditch the Kantor and double the manganese. Far cheaper. Powders work out a bit cheaper but are more hassle to mix and can block nozzles. I use an IBC. For £1/ha in product it will cost more to drive the machine!

You won't find many fans of serviced agronomists in TFF. There are some good ones around so if you think yours is taking the mickey then ask the distributor to find you another one or you'll go to an independent agronomist whose vested interest is to give you value for money, not sell their own gear.

Welcome to the forum!

 

[DrWazzock]

I don't like spending money so add a couple of kg of ammonium nitrate per ha to the sprayer water before adding the manganese sulphate as a powder, Bittersalz and copper oxychloride powder. I add activator 90 as a wetter/sticker if there's nothing else in the mix like a fungicide to do the wetting and sticking.

I also have far less "manganese defficiency" since cutting back Autumn herbicides to the bare minimum required on my sand, in particular cutting out PDM. I only use DFF and flufenacet preemergence. I drill with a Moore drill that has heavy press wheels after rolling the seedbed twice with Cambridge rolls.

I was out today giving it a bag per acre of ammonium sulphate as well. This will help green it a bit and the acidification will help release manganese.

It's a frustrating problem. Hope this helps a bit.

 

[Dicky.A]

Thanks for all advice.
I've done some field trials with fastmix, cheep powder. Kantor no Kantor etc. So will see.
Do people tend to find straight powdered manganese sulphate works better than liquid? Like your idea Robbie- mix as straights. Might give tissue tests a go.

 

[Thomas Simpson]

We use yara mantrac or groove which is a powder product, not that pleasant to use so prefer to use full 4l/ha of mn 15% in 1000l ibc. Or 1l/ha of mancozin with copper and zinc where other deficiencies are showing.

 

[Dicky.A]

Ok cheers will look into