New Way To Place Nitrogen On Both Sides Of Corn Rows

New Way To Place Nitrogen On Both Sides Of Corn Rows CROPS Miscellaneous Ohio no-till farmer Alvin King says the Nutri-Placer that he and his sons developed for applying nitrogen fertilizer with their corn planter produced a 9 8 bushels-per-acre yield advantage over fertilizer placed with conventional single-disk openers in 2016 “We produced those results in 15 replications on a 16-acre field using stabilized high-energy nitrogen ” King says King and his sons built the Nutri-Placer after learning that dribbling nitrogen on both sides of a corn row feeds the roots evenly compared to placing all of it on one side “I told the boys that sure makes sense so lets build something that puts fertilizer within 2 in on both sides of the seed ” King says Their Nutri-Placer uses stainless steel tubes attached to both sides of a bracket mounted to the closing wheel on their Deere planter Liquid nitrogen feeds into the tubes through a Y adapter and dribbles onto the ground through 11-in steel-braided hydraulic hoses attached to the tube ends “The hydraulic hoses are stiff so they remain straight as the planter moves through the field placing the liquid in a nice even band on both sides of the seed We mounted a piece of Martin drag chain on 2 brackets to lightly incorporate the liquid into the soil ” King says Asked if the tubes plug with soil or the chain gets filled with crop residue and balls up with dirt during planting King says they haven’t experienced any problems on their farm “We’re no-till and the people I’ve sold them to are also no-tilling and it’s worked fine If others experience a problem we’ll have to look for a solution ” King says that his Nutri-Placer is much lighter than a typical disk opener mounted on a row unit so there’s no compaction in the root zone to hamper plant growth “We removed the disk openers and installed Nutri-Placers on all the row units The roots on plants we dug up were more balanced than when we were putting fertilizer on one side of the row ” King says He also uses pop-up fertilizer in furrow King says the Nutri-Placer kit which he sells for $105 is easy to bolt onto the closing wheel bracket of a Deere or Kinze planter It includes a Y adapter that fits the fertilizer supply line laser cut tubes formed with a CNC bender a weldment that bolts to each side of the closing wheel and two 11-in pieces of hydraulic hose The kit doesn’t include drag chain “We’re running more yield trials on our farm this year and other farmers who used the Nutri-Placer will also provide results ” adds King who says the device is inexpensive and easy-to-maintain compared to disk-style openers Contact: FARM SHOW Followup Nutri-Placer Alvin King 2211 Beery Rd Lima Ohio 45807 ph 419 549-0266

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