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“What we really like to see is a report on a complete soil test, not just soil pH and texture, but phosphorus, potassium, calcium, sulfur, micronutrients. Another thing that is often neglected is base saturation. We use that to help understand if soil is in good chemistry balance.”

— John Leif, Regional Agronomist, AgroLiquid

Your harvest at the end of the season depends on the attention you give your soil and your crops at the beginning of it. Step 1 should be a crop fertility plan based on a complete soil analysis, according to John Leif, a regional agronomist at AgroLiquid.

Leif is joining Strip-Till Farmer for the National Strip-Tillage Conference July 28-29 in Iowa to help us go back to the basics to take an in-depth look at the nutrients that make a difference in your crop and the best strip-till application practices to set you up for success.

In today’s episode of the Strip-Till Farmer podcast, brought to you by the Pluribus Lite from Dawn Equipment, Leif explains the basics of soil testing, some common mistakes farmers make when soil testing, when to apply nutrients, how to determine if you should band vs. broadcast and much more.

You’re invited to join John and dozens of other industry experts and cutting-edge strip-tillers for 2 days of learning and unlimited networking at the 2022 National Strip-Tillage Conference. Register today to save your seat!

The Strip-Till Farmer podcast is brought to you by Dawn Equipment.

Dawn Equipment, a family-owned company in Sycamore, Illinois, has a reputation for responsive customer service and American-made quality products that goes back to its origin nearly 3 decades. The company has grown to more than 40 employees and numerous products, earned awards for innovative design plus a growing number of patents, but it has not lost its commitment to U.S. made products. And customers and dealers can still call to speak directly with sales and engineering staff. Dawn has redefined several market segments like strip-till and active hydraulic control of planter and attachments. Dawn was the first company to make a remotely controllable planting product. Dawn continues its commitment to innovation, to customer service, and to active response to the changing needs of America’s farmers. Visit them at www.dawnequipment.com.

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Full Transcript

Michaela Paukner:
Welcome to this episode of the Strip-Till Farmer podcast series I'm Michaela Paukner. Strip-Till Farmer's technology editor. Today's episode of the Strip-Till Farmer podcast series is brought to you by the Pluribus Lite from Dawn equipment. Dawn is bringing today's innovative farmers, a new Strip-Till product from the regenerative ag focused underground agriculture brand. The Pluribus Lite is priced like a strip freshener, but it offers the features and performance to be used in the fall or spring as a primary strip tiller or strip freshener. It's the perfect compliment to a cover crop system that just needs a little blacker strip. Check out the Pluribus Lite at dawnequipment.com.

Michaela Paukner:
Your harvest at the end of the season, depends on the attention you give your soil and your crops. At the beginning of it. Step one should be a crop fertility plan based on a complete soil analysis. According to John Leif, a regional agronomist at AgroLiquid. John is joining Strip-Till Farmer for the national strip tillage conference in July in Iowa City, to help us go back to the basics, to take an in-depth look at the nutrients that make a difference in your crop and the best application practices to set you up for success. In today's episode of the Strip-Till Farmer podcast, John explains the basics of soil testing, some common mistakes farmers make when soil testing, when to apply nutrients, how to determine if you should ban versus broadcast and much more.

John Leif:
My name is John Leif, and I am a regional agronomist with AgroLiquid Fertilizer company based out of St. John's Michigan. What I do for AgroLiquid is provide technical expertise on how best to use our fertilizer products, provide training to our sales staff, our retailers, and our grower customers on the best use of our products, timings, placements, use rates, things like that.

Michaela Paukner:
And where in Michigan are you located and where are your customers primarily located?

John Leif:
The company is located in St. John's Michigan. That's our corporate headquarters. That's about 25 miles north of Lansing, Michigan, right in the center of the state. We have a manufacturing facility in Ashley, Michigan, which is about another 25 miles north of St John's. And we also have manufacturing in Iowa and Kansas, North Dakota, California, and Montana. Our customers that I service are in the Northeast region, anywhere from Illinois onwards east to Virginia, and then north up through Maine and then I also cover Ontario. As a company, we have retail customers and grower customers all across the United States and Canada. And we also have a retailer in Mexico that we serve as well.

Michaela Paukner:
So you alone and the company are covering quite a broad range of different soil types and types of farming and whatnot?

John Leif:
Oh, absolutely yes. I'm responsible for the Northeast United States. There are four other agronomists that cover various geographies across the country, but yeah, we cover anything from the row crop industry across the Eastern and central United States, anything from corn and soybeans to cotton and tobacco and peanuts in the south. And we also have a good presence in the fruit and vegetable industry, especially in California and Pacific Northwest. So we cover pretty much all the different crops and across the entire United States and Canada.

Michaela Paukner:
You are joining us for the 2022 national Strip Tillage Conference in Iowa, July 28th through 29th. And you're going presenting on soil testing and nutrition. So what are some of the things that attendees are going to learn from your presentation?

John Leif:
My presentation is going to primarily focus on using the soil test information to develop a good crop nutrition plan. As a company, we really like to use the soil test as the basis for crop nutrition planning. And our goal is not to get as much fertilizer out there as we can. We want to get fertilizer into a field, into a crop at a rate and at a time where it is best used, and we want to try to keep our nutrients in good balance. So those are the kind of things that I'm going to be talking about, not just nitrogen, but things like phosphorus, potassium, sulfur, and micronutrients, which are often somewhat neglected.

Michaela Paukner:
What types of soil tasks are you using for your customers as you're developing these plans?

John Leif:
Well, we have relationship with several different laboratories around the country. One of the ones that we use a lot is Midwest Laboratories out of Omaha, Nebraska. We also have good relationships with several of the A&L laboratories across the country and some more regional ones as well. What we really like to see when we get a soil test report is a report on [inaudible 00:05:38] complete soil test, not just soil pH and texture and things like that, but phosphorus, potassium, calcium, sulfur, micronutrients. And another thing that is often neglected is a component called base saturation. We use that to help understand if the soil is in good chemistry balance. And if not, we can try to address that.

Michaela Paukner:
So once you have that complete soil test, how are you using that to create the crop nutrition plan?

John Leif:
I do this on a several step process and different folks do it different ways, but I think we all try to come to the same conclusion, but how I work with the soil test report, is I take a look at first of all, what is there, is the phosphorus level good? Is the pH good? Is the potassium level good? Are things in balance? I mentioned that earlier. If the soil chemistry is out of balance, we can try to address that with either lime or potash or a magnesium product, for example, to try to get those nutrients into a proper balance or ratio, so that the rest of our crop nutrition program can work as well as it can. And once we get that addressed, then we can take a look at the individual nutrients, phosphorous, potassium, for example.

John Leif:
And we compare that to what the crop needs for these yield goal that the grower has. If in corn, for example, if a corn grower wants to target 200 bushel per acre corn, we have an idea of how much phosphorus that takes in order to produce 200 bushel per acre corn. And we can compare that to what the soil has, and if there is a need for putting supplemental phosphorus fertilizer out, we can calculate then how much phosphorus we need to apply in order to meet that goal. And we do that with all of the different nutrients.

Michaela Paukner:
Okay. And then what would you say are the components of a good crop nutrition plan?

John Leif:
We need to address all the major crop nutrients, nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium. Those are the three macro nutrients as they call it. If one of those is lacking, then the rest of the crop nutrition program doesn't work as well as it should. So we want to make sure to have enough nitrogen to feed the crop, if we're talking about corn or wheat crop that requires supplemental nitrogen. And then phosphorus, we want to make sure we have enough of that to meet the need and potassium as well. The one thing that we strive to try to balance as well and to meet those needs is our micronutrients. Corn for example, zinc and manganese are two very important micronutrients, as well as iron and copper and boron. A lot of our soils are deficient in boron. A lot of our soils are deficient in sulfur. So we have to try to meet those crop nutrition needs with supplemental fertilizers in order to allow the entire crop nutrition system to work as well as it can.

Michaela Paukner:
And then the soil test is the basis of all of this?

John Leif:
If a soil shows adequate or high levels of manganese, for example, we don't have to concentrate on putting a manganese product into our system, or if it's high in zinc, we don't have to worry about putting a lot of zinc in, similar with our nitrogen phosphorus and potassium. If we're in a situation where a person is a livestock producer, there's often high levels or excess levels of phosphorus in those systems. So we only have to put on just a little bit of phosphorus in order to get that crop out of the ground and get it to utilize the phosphorus that's already there.

Michaela Paukner:
So with the soil test being square one for everything, how often should strip tillers be testing their soil and at what time of year?

John Leif:
The general rule of thumb that we use is about a three year cycle for testing your soils. So one field will be tested every third year or so. When, is kind of up to the grower, I use a lot of fall soil testing as the basis of my recommendations, primarily because there's more time to do that in the fall and get your results back and start to make a plan. It can also be done in the spring just as easily. And the only downside to that is that you don't have quite enough time, as much time to develop that crop nutrition plan. And if you need to do some dry amendments, getting those applied, there's not as much time, but that can certainly be done. Whatever the system a grower wants to do, I do recommend that it's done consistently. Fall samples versus spring samples can be a little bit different just the way the winter weathering has happened in the soil. So if you're trying to compare your progress from one sample time to the next, it's best to always do it in the fall, or always do it in the spring.

Michaela Paukner:
That's good advice. What are some of the common mistakes that you see farmers making when it comes to soil tests?

John Leif:
I always try to encourage a grower to take a soil sample in an area that is fairly uniform and that soil sample can best represent that area. If you get too many different variables or variations within soil sample, it can start to give misleading information. So for example, if you have a field that is primarily medium textured clay soil, and then you have a little pocket of sand, if you put one or two of those cores into a bag that's a sandy soil and put the rest of it with the heavier textured soil, then the laboratory really doesn't care what goes into that bag, they're just going to test what's in that bag. So we can minimize that variation if we try to limit our soil sampling to areas that are fairly uniform and easy to manage.

Michaela Paukner:
What else should we talk about, about your presentation for the Strip Tillage Conference?

John Leif:
For the strip-till component specifically, I'm going to be weaving some of our research results that we've done over the course of the last 10 years or so in strip-till research, into this presentation. We have a pretty substantial research farm here in Michigan, where we've done all of our fertilizer testing, as well as in field arrangements around the country. But we've done some very specific testing with our products in strip till. So I'll be highlighting some of our products and how they can be best used in a strip-till situation using it in the fall versus using it in the spring. What to put into a strip-till versus what to put on through the planter, to get the best optimal utilization of that. So those are some of the topics that I'll be talking about specifically with regard to strip-till.

Michaela Paukner:
Before we continue this conversation, I'd like to take a moment to thank our sponsor. The Pluribus Lite from Dawn equipment. Dawn is bringing today's innovative farmers, a new strip-till product from the regenerative ag focused underground agriculture brand. The Pluribus Lite is priced like a strip freshener, but it offers the features and performance to be used in the fall or spring as a primary strip tiller or strip freshener. It's the perfect compliment to a cover crop system that just needs a little blacker strip. Check out Pluribus Lite at dawnequipment.com. Now let's get back to the conversation.

Michaela Paukner:
What do you think is the discovery over the past decade from your strip-till research farm that really stands out to you and that you think would have the most practical application for other strip tillers?

John Leif:
There is a lot of flexibility. That's the biggest discovery that we've found putting the strips out in the fall, putting fertilizer on at that time seems to be about the best overall program for things like potassium and sulfur. We can do the same in the spring and does just as well. Phosphorus is just a little bit different. That was one thing that I noticed in our research data is that it is okay to put phosphorus on through the strip-till system, but the best use of phosphorus is to put that on at planting either in a two by two or in a [inaudible 00:15:11] arrangement.

John Leif:
So that, that phosphorus is immediately available to that germinating seed. So whereas things like potassium and sulfur for example, are very readily available in that strip, phosphorus would be too, but phosphorus does need to be up close to that seed in order for it to take it up early in that germinating process. Some of the other things that we've found is that nitrogen in strip-till has its place, but it's best to use a combination approach with nitrogen either with a strip-till and side dress or at planting and side dress, things like that. So a lot of flexibility, but you also need to understand where the strengths of the different nutrients are and how best to use that strip-till system.

Michaela Paukner:
That's interesting. I had talked to someone earlier this week who strip-tills, and he said, he felt like the nutrients were taken up better by the crop when he does it in spring versus in fall with putting it in the strip. So he was a big advocate of spring only, but it sounds like you said, there's a lot of flexibility in what will work at the different times of the year.

John Leif:
And we have done our work in Michigan on this particular project, our soils are kind of a light to medium texture soil, where it works real well for us to put this on in the fall. I'm not sure where your interviewee was located, but in their particular situation, if they have different types of soil, perhaps it would be a better fit for a springtime application. So again, you kind of have to tailor make our recommendations to the soils and the conditions and the location that we're working with.

Michaela Paukner:
Makes sense. Walk me through the process of how you've worked with a strip tiller from step one, soil testing all the way through deciding when they're going to apply these nutrients.

John Leif:
Once the soil test is completed and we get that information back, then we can decide, okay, do we need to do any soil amendments? That'd be basically a broadcast application of dry fertilizers. There is a very good use for dry fertilizers as soil amendments in crop nutrition, AgroLiquid products are intended to provide crop nutrition for the growing season that it's applied. And that would include from the fall through the following summer in a strip-till arrangement. So for example, if we're growing corn and he has a specific yield goal, we can take a look at the potassium and the phosphorus and the sulfur needs, and the micronutrient needs from that soil test and then decide, okay, we need a certain number of gallons of our pro germinating phosphorus or our calibrate potassium product. And then we can work with the grower to say, "Okay, when is it best for you to be doing these things?"

John Leif:
We don't want to force a grower to change their practices, just to use our products. We want to be able for our customers to use our products in the systems that they already use. Like I said, if a grower likes to put his strips out in the fall, we can then determine how much of our potassium, how much of our phosphorus, how much of our sulfur should we be applying in that fall strip-till, and then based on what he has for planting equipment and the ability to apply fertilizer through the planter, we can say, "All right, we can then put these different products on at the planter in order to make the best use of all of the nutrients that we have available." So that, is a very general way in which we would go about doing that. If the grower wants to do that in the spring, we can make those adjustments and get those materials into the strips in the spring as well.

Michaela Paukner:
Okay. This year everyone's talking about high fertilizer prices and what they can do to reduce that cost. And I know some people are thinking strip-till is the way to go with that, because you're placing the nutrients right there where the crop needs them and hopefully would need less then. So what impact do you think that these fertilizer prices will make for strip-till going forward?

John Leif:
From a crop nutrition input standpoint, you're right, putting a concentrated band of fertilizer in that row or just under that row to where a crop can can get to it, is going to save on broadcast application costs, for example. It will make those nutrients more available to that crop when you apply it that year. Broadcasting, for example, only a small percent of that crop route will ever get to the broadcasted dry fertilizer that goes out. So we're making more efficient use of our fertilizers as well as reducing the overall amount of product that has to be applied. As far as will this last? I honestly don't know, but there's more to strip-till of course, than just the crop nutrition side. There's the soil conservation aspects of strip-till which are very important. Being able to keep residue on that surface, at least in portions of that field, so that we reduce the amount of erosion runoff, that I think is a very important part of the whole strip-till process.

John Leif:
And as growers understand the value of that, that will also increase the likelihood that strip-till stays as part of the grower's practices. Also, having the technology to be able to do things very precisely, anything from the GPS auto steer that helps keep the planter in the same track as the strip-tiller, very important part of that process of making the strip-till system work. And so, the better that technology gets, the higher likelihood of those practices will remain. So input costs certainly will have positive impact on the way strip-till is utilized at least this next year or two, perhaps the long term will be the larger benefits of strip-till.

Michaela Paukner:
Talking about banding versus broadcasting the nutrients, that's one of the most popular topics that people are looking at on our website, kind of comparing what they should consider when banning or broadcasting. So from your perspective, what advice would you give someone?

John Leif:
Well, as I have talked a little bit about already, I do find a value of broadcast fertilizers in order to help change the chemistry balance in the soil. I think of that especially with products like lime or dry potash, if potassium levels are out of balance, dry potash does a very good job at helping with that. Providing crop nutrition, is the way that our liquid fertilizers can really shine. Getting a concentrated band in that root zone or just under that root zone, so that as that root gets down into that application zone, it has a nice concentrated dose of fertilizer that it can use to be fed for either the start of the season or the entire season.

John Leif:
AgroLiquid products are developed so that we can provide season long crop nutrition with our liquid fertilizers and not just a simple popup. We do have popup type products that would be better used in the planter, but to be able to get season long nutrition in that concentrated band is a great way to use liquid products. And then also when you apply that fertilizer in a band, it's typically well below the soil surface, so it has a much less opportunity for being eroded either through wind erosion or water erosion, which is a big benefit to the environment and helps with that public view of agriculture that way.

Michaela Paukner:
When you are broadcasting something like potash, for example, in a strip-till situation, is it being absorbed evenly with the residue?

John Leif:
In a broadcast situation like in strip-till where you're not going to be incorporating it, that's kind of the downside to a broadcast application of dry fertilizer in a system like that. The products that are going to be in that residue zone are not going to be incorporated into that root zone like it would it with the strip-till machine. So you will see a higher concentration of that fertilizer in like the top one or two inches of that soil compared to in the strips where it would be incorporated more deeply. So there is likely to be a bit of a difference in that. And again, a lot of it has to do with what are the soil conditions, what are the nutrient conditions in the soil? If a grower really needs to address a particular problem with dry fertilizer, that could be the way to go.

Michaela Paukner:
And was there anything else you wanted to talk about?

John Leif:
Just reinforce the notion that strip-till is a part of a larger system of crop production, it's not the only thing to use. It can be an excellent tool, but for a grower to be able to utilize strip-till in conjunction with his planter equipment, in conjunction with any kind of side dress and foliar applications from a crop nutrition standpoint makes that system a lot more flexible and gives the grower a lot of options. The other thing I always like to talk about, any time we talk about a tillage type of a system, is to make sure that the soil is dry enough to be worked without causing a risk of compaction. Compaction is going to make a mess of any of the best systems that you can ever come up with. So making sure that when you put those strips out, either in the fall or in the spring, that the soil is dry enough, so that it's not going to cause a compaction layer down at the bottom of that strip. Very important in both the immediate crop production year and for a number of years to come.

Michaela Paukner:
Thanks to John Leif for joining me for today's conversation. He's hosting a classroom session on soil testing and nutrition at the National Strip-Tillage Conference in Iowa city on July 28th. Head to strip-tillconference.com to register for two days of learning from industry experts like John and cutting edge strip-tillers. If you're looking for more podcasts about strip-till, visit strip-tillfarmer.com/podcast, or check out our episode library, wherever you get your podcasts. Finally, many thanks to the Pluribus Lite from Dawn Equipment for helping to make this strip-till podcast series possible. From all of us here at Strip-Till Farmer, I'm Michaela Paukner, thanks for listening.