Tank mixing molasses

[Howdenshire Farmer]

Following the example of @Clive and others I am going to add molasses to each pass of liquid fert this year.
I am also going to try adding some whenever I do a pass with the sprayer. Graham Sait suggested this when I heard him a few weeks back and the recent Rothamstead work has given me further belief that there may be some merit to it.
Anyone tried it already? Any practical suggestions I should consider? Does it tank mix ok?
Happy to hear thoughts from people who are thinking on the same lines.
I have been told to use molasses from cane sugar because it doesn't have any sediment in it. Is all cane molasses the same or is some cleaner than others?

 

[Andrew K]

Been doing it at 3l/ha on second wheats for a couple of years.No problems so far, but havent mixed it with anything other than fungicide.

 

[Shutesy]

Been doing it at 3l/ha on second wheats for a couple of years.No problems so far, but havent mixed it with anything other than fungicide.

What do you think are the benefits to the crop of using it when spraying fungicides? Are you liquid or solid fert? Also where do you get yours from, I'm interested to try some but can't find any in this area or I haven't looked hard enough!

 

[mo!]

Are you going to do some without to compare?

 

[Andrew K]

What do you think are the benefits to the crop of using it when spraying fungicides? Are you liquid or solid fert? Also where do you get yours from, I'm interested to try some but can't find any in this area or I haven't looked hard enough!

Alex
You are effectively giving the crop a dose of sugar, helps when crops are stressed IMO. We are liquid fert users , but dont think thats particularly important really. I do apply it using 200 litres/ha of water through 05 Guardian airs to get good foliar cover. No tillers would prob say that getting it onto soil is also a good thing though for soil life! I think Clive does a similar thing?
Got mine through Fram farmers.

 

[Shutesy]

Alex
You are effectively giving the crop a dose of sugar, helps when crops are stressed IMO. We are liquid fert users , but dont think thats particularly important really. I do apply it using 200 litres/ha of water through 05 Guardian airs to get good foliar cover. No tillers would prob say that getting it onto soil is also a good thing though for soil life! I think Clive does a similar thing?
Got mine through Fram farmers.

Cheers Andrew, Think i'll have to get an IBC and try some in field tests. Pretty sure our soil could do with some extra life in it Do you have to be a Fram farmers member to be able to get things like IBC's of molasses through them?

 

[Howdenshire Farmer]

Been doing it at 3l/ha on second wheats for a couple of years.No problems so far, but havent mixed it with anything other than fungicide.

Why only second wheat? Has it improved yield or reduced disease pressure?

 

[Howdenshire Farmer]

Are you going to do some without to compare?

Yes

 

[Andrew K]

Why only second wheat? Has it improved yield or reduced disease pressure?

Was interested to see if we could help reduce take all, put some on at GS32 and 39. Yields were good for us .
Dont think it would necessarily reduce foliar disease pressure as the sugar element probably feeds bacteria rather than destroys them.
I am no scientist, someone on here will know better?

 

[Andrew K]

Why only second wheat? Has it improved yield or reduced disease pressure?

Was interested to see if we could help reduce take all, put some on at GS32 and 39. Yields were good for us .
Dont think it would necessarily reduce foliar disease pressure as the sugar element probably feeds bacteria rather than destroys them.
I am no scientist, someone on here will know better?

 

[Andrew K]

Cheers Andrew, Think i'll have to get an IBC and try some in field tests. Pretty sure our soil could do with some extra life in it Do you have to be a Fram farmers member to be able to get things like IBC's of molasses through them?

Dont know,
I would speak to them about membership if they can save you money on your inputs? 01728 727713

 

[martian]

Joel Williams was talking about this kind of thing last week at the Richard Harding CA Conference. I've been trying to interpret the scrawled notes I took, but (as I understood it) high nitrate levels in the plant will encourage pest and disease attack and thus you want to reduce these levels. This you can do by ensuring you've got enough Molybdenum (obviously!), bittersalts and a lot of other stuff which I now can't read which helps the plant keep N as ammonium.

He was keen on adding Fulvic and Humic acid to sprays/liquid ferts as a fungal food; molasses is more bacterial food. Fungi like to eat more complex stuff than simple sugars and they provide plants with more complex chemicals in return which help the plant remain healthy. Correct me if I'm wrong, he was firing so many ideas at us, by lunchtime my brain was nearly melting...

 

[The_Swede]

That's about the same gist as I took away from a meeting of his last year

 

[AF Salers]

@Andrew K presumably you know who is supplying you the cane molasses through Fram Farmers, would you care to divulge who that is? Ta

 

[SimonD]

I think there's some value in adding some molasses, I've been doing it for the past 2 years but not as a liquid N additive. I certainly can't see any reason not too.

 

[damaged]

I was under the impression from Joel that its wrapping inputs in carbon for availability at the correct level. So humic acid and molasses has long chain hydro carbon to bond with. A cheap carrier.
Yes, sugar is a simple chain available to bacteria, not necessarily what soil needs. He was looking to add complex carbon feed. Two different issues . Carbon wrapping as a soft carrier and sugar as too simple a feed, for bacteria not fungi.
Still, thats my take from the presentation. @Jason ?
@martian you are correct (i think)

 

[Simon Chiles]

Joel Williams was talking about this kind of thing last week at the Richard Harding CA Conference. I've been trying to interpret the scrawled notes I took, but (as I understood it) high nitrate levels in the plant will encourage pest and disease attack and thus you want to reduce these levels. This you can do by ensuring you've got enough Molybdenum (obviously!), bittersalts and a lot of other stuff which I now can't read which helps the plant keep N as ammonium.

He was keen on adding Fulvic and Humic acid to sprays/liquid ferts as a fungal food; molasses is more bacterial food. Fungi like to eat more complex stuff than simple sugars and they provide plants with more complex chemicals in return which help the plant remain healthy. Correct me if I'm wrong, he was firing so many ideas at us, by lunchtime my brain was nearly melting...

I thought he said that nitrate levels in the plant affected the sap pH, the ideal being 6.4. Higher pH increased the risk of insect attack and lower pH increased the risk of disease. Potassium also affects sap pH, and you need to test old and new leaves, the deviation between them shouldn't be more than 10%. Potassium deficiency is an indicator of over application of N. As you said Molybdenum increased N uptake ( or utilised ) by the plant.
I thought he said that adding carbon to fertilisers and fungicides would increase uptake i.e. adding molasses and organic acids. Fulvic was for feeding soil bacteria and humic for soil soil fungi, and not to mix them together in the tank.
I think his other stuff you couldn't remember was 2% MgS, 60g/ha Sodium Molybdate and 150g/ha Fluvic acid powder.
@Simon C will correct me if I'm wrong as he knows far more about all this stuff.

 

[Howdenshire Farmer]

I thought he said that nitrate levels in the plant affected the sap pH, the ideal being 6.4. Higher pH increased the risk of insect attack and lower pH increased the risk of disease. Potassium also affects sap pH, and you need to test old and new leaves, the deviation between them shouldn't be more than 10%. Potassium deficiency is an indicator of over application of N. As you said Molybdenum increased N uptake ( or utilised ) by the plant.
I thought he said that adding carbon to fertilisers and fungicides would increase uptake i.e. adding molasses and organic acids. Fulvic was for feeding soil bacteria and humic for soil soil fungi, and not to mix them together in the tank.
I think his other stuff you couldn't remember was 2% MgS, 60g/ha Sodium Molybdate and 150g/ha Fluvic acid powder.
@Simon C will correct me if I'm wrong as he knows far more about all this stuff.

It all sounds as clear as er.....
mud.

 

[Simon C]

Bacteria need to eat carbon as well as nitrogen, 5:1 actually, so if you dump on a load of N, they have to go after your organic carbon to balance their diet. This is why nitrogen and cultivations are are both responsible for SOM reduction. If you add some carbon with you N, the theory is that you are saving your organic matter. I have been adding molasses to liquid N for a few years now but last year used a mix from Mike Harrington which is purpose made for the job and is cheaper. I mix at 3%, but I think the jury is still out on what is actually needed. Jon Frank is the expert on all this, start here http://www.aglabs.com/biological-concepts.html and then carry on with everything else he has to say on his site.

Testing sap sugar levels is very interesting with a refractometer and I can confirm that it is impossible to get the levels up while using artificial N, in fact you can track when each application gets taken up by how the sugar levels go down in the sap. I have seen good readings in a drought when N is not being made available, and it is easy to get high readings with legumes.

These are the pH meters that Joel talked about https://www.coleparmer.co.uk/i/horiba-ph-laqua-pocket-tester-ph-range-2-to-14-ph/0575410 and the potassium meter https://www.coleparmer.co.uk/i/horiba-potassium-laqua-pocket-tester-range-39-to-3900-ppm/0575425 I have the pH one, but haven'y used it enough to really learn much.

Dan Skow's book, Mainline farming For The Century 21 is the best source of info about all this from Acres http://www.acresusa.com/mainline-farming-for-century-21. Quite heavy going in places and regular scientists would no doubt disagree with a lot of it, but what do they know!

 

[Longneck]

So I'm keen to try some of this, when is the best timing? I can add to liquid fert or fungicide, which is best? How much to apply?
Can get came molasses at 64% sugar.