Q: Can subject overall performance be improved by a improved comprehending of the soil and nutrition placement?
A: Soil nutrition in a area can be looked at like a blanket — not the unexciting, white, duvet-form of blanket, but a a lot more special quilt with variety in patterns and colors. This soil variability in the industry changes diet requirements and where they are very best positioned and used in the discipline. Hilly landscapes are the most clear but generally the flattest landscapes are as variable, just considerably less so to the bare eye. To ideal take care of soil and nutrition prolonged expression, we will have to look into and discover the variability.
A single of the most basic strategies is to operate NDVI (Normalized Difference Vegetative Index) to appear traditionally at the reduced, normal and substantial vegetative spots. As soon as these parts are visible, it is uncomplicated to entire comparative soil checks in every single of the regions seeking at nutrient and salinity stages as well as soil texture.
Comprehending the lower- generating locations can give assistance to place far more or fewer nutrition in these places centered on the limiting issue(s). Is it soil texture and a sand ridge? Is it a saline space? Lacking a certain nutrient? Once this is understood, soil nutrition in a discipline can start out to be managed in finer depth.
Use of variable-fee fertilization is the most straightforward way to do this. With sensing know-how and satellite imagery, a foundation charge of diet can be modified to the parts of variability mentioned by NDVI and other scientific calculations.
Knowledge the why provides the ground truth in nutrient placement. If each and every acre in the industry does not have the exact prospective, why treat it that way? Raising fertility prices in the parts of superior likely matches best the uptake and elimination.
By understanding variability across the landscape, we can make better choices for where by fertility is ideal put to maximize crop possible. We can superior comprehend the soil by applying NDVI imagery together with soil screening to far better area fertility with the use of variable-rate technology and nutrient placement.
Brianna Lummerding, B.Sc., PAg, CCA, is a supervisor of agronomic services for Nutrien Ag Remedies in north-central Saskatchewan.
