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New Injector Discs
When Wayne Solt, Pearl City, Ill., built a confinement beef barn with a manure pit in the mid 1970's, he expected the collected liquid manure to "pay for the barn" in reduced fertilizer costs and increased yields. He never got bigger yields and, in fact, he thinks they were actually reduced by as much as 50% in some ca
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New injector discs FERTILIZER APPLICATION Fertilizer Application (58f) 12-3-29 When Wayne Solt, Pearl City, Ill., built a confinement beef barn with a manure pit in the mid 1970's, he expected the collected liquid manure to "pay for the barn" in reduced fertilizer costs and increased yields. He never got bigger yields and, in fact, he thinks they were actually reduced by as much as 50% in some cases.
"Our corn fields looked terrible. We had high-low corn meaning that in the same row some corn was knee-high and some was waist-high. Something was wrong even though the liquid manure we were applying tested out at 200 lbs. nitrogen, 90.6 lbs. phosphorus, and 61.8 lbs. of potassium per acre. I though maybe we had a compaction problem so I bought a subsoiler and ripped down to 24 in. When that didn't help, we got in touch with Bob Hoeft, crop specialist at the University of Illinois," says Solt.
Hoeft and a graduate student set up test plots on the farm and conducted tests for 7 years. In 1986 they concluded that the knife-injected manure formed a strongly concentrated manure zone. Crop mots would grow over to the manure zone and then turn 180? away, particularly under wet conditions. "Research showed that the manure didn't cause reduced yields. The problem was with the method of application," explains Solt.
Armed with the new information, Solt set out to develop a manure applicator that would spread liquid manure evenly across a zone 2 to 3 in. below the surface. His work resulted in the new horizontal spinning "injector discs".
The notched discs are 24 in. across. They penetrate about 3 in. and their forward motion causes them to rotate. Solt says the discs actually take less power to pull than injector knives. "Manure enters the center of the disc. The result is a pencil-thin band of liquid manure spread across the full width of the disc. In 1987, which was a dry year for us, we got yields as high or higher than anyone in our area and the high-low growth pattern of plants was no longer visible," says Solt, who sold rights for the design to Badger-Northland. The company is conducting field tests and hopes to have the "injector discs" on the market by 1989.
For more information, contact FARM SHOW Followup, Badger-Northland, Inc., P.O. Box 1215, Kaukauna, Wis. 54130 (ph 414 766-4603).
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