Spreader Adding Urea to standing corn??

[Mike4282]

Dont know where to post this but ill give it a shot here.. Has anyone tried this? If so how, and when i say how I mean by what method. I do not want to broadcast as it would be a big waste at this point. I have read about side charging standing corn to give it a boost. I am thinking about trying to rig a push spreader with a funel and tubing but not sure if this will work.. Any help would be gladly excepted..

 

[bp fick]

Dont know where to post this but ill give it a shot here.. Has anyone tried this? If so how, and when i say how I mean by what method. I do not want to broadcast as it would be a big waste at this point. I have read about side charging standing corn to give it a boost. I am thinking about trying to rig a push spreader with a funel and tubing but not sure if this will work.. Any help would be gladly excepted..

It's August 2. Details are needed. How mature is the corn? Is there time for the urea to have the kick desired? Do you irrigate or is there rain in the near future?

Yes, side dressing corn with urea is pretty standard stuff, but there's no magic. Need those answers to the above.

 

[Mike4282]

Corn is about one acre for a deer food plot. corn is late on purpose. about knee high now. I will make sure there is rain in the near future so I dont lose any unwanted. I more or less need an idea on how to lay the fert down. Thanks

 

[bp fick]

Corn is about one acre for a deer food plot. corn is late on purpose. about knee high now. I will make sure there is rain in the near future so I dont lose any unwanted. I more or less need an idea on how to lay the fert down. Thanks

You've got time. If frost isn't likely, in your area until Oct 1? You have time to walk the rows and "under hand" it out of a shallow bucket. Hard to explain the technique, but it's an ancient form of broadcasting, only the underhand motion allows you direct it as a side dress.

If you want, you could drag a pointed hoe and scratch it in. If you have solid rains forecast, like 1"? You'd be pleased with the dissolving aspect of urea. Of course, it would have been great to have applied it a month ago, but if it is still only knee high, you get rains, and you don't get frost until Oct 1? It'll still work. There's still time. Hope that encourages you. All except the manual broadcast aspect, I suspect. :laughing::laughing:

 

[ray66v]

I agree there is time to side dress it with some food now.

I used to do that, but I learned it is easier to really load up the soil with nitrogen, about 2 weeks before I plant. It works for me, my corn stays nice and dark green all season.

I used to add nitrogen and other fertilizers in stages, waiting 2 weeks and testing the soil, until it showed a surplus of nitrogen. I learned how much to add, (and boy it takes a lot to get a surplus), so now I just dump it in, and till it under. Wait 2 weeks, and plant. I also only do this in about a 12 wide area, precisely where the row of corn is going to be planted.

 

[5030]

At 2 foot, it's walkable and you could rig up a pail and hose arrangement and surface side dress with 28 liquid. Just put a lid on the pail.

 

[jimgerken]

As we are talking about corn, I was thinking that next year I might experiment with a tank of liquid fertilizer that could be routed thru tubes to right next to each planted row, like 2 inches away. I may need a paristaltic pump ground driven to make the flow correct even as the tank level goes down. We used to have pumps like this for liquid fertilizer made by MeterMan or something that started with the letter "D", I forgot. Any ideas there would be appreciated. Should be easy to drive the pump off one JD 71 unit gear train.

 

[5030]

Lots of brands of positive displacement pumps around, both captive chamber and hose squeeze variety. Try Grainger, there is literally pages of them in various configurations in the catalog. You just have to watch compatability with solution.

 

[browny]

Dont know where to post this but ill give it a shot here.. Has anyone tried this? If so how, and when i say how I mean by what method. I do not want to broadcast as it would be a big waste at this point. I have read about side charging standing corn to give it a boost. I am thinking about trying to rig a push spreader with a funel and tubing but not sure if this will work.. Any help would be gladly excepted..

I have done this to my corn plots with a boadcast Agri-Fab push spreader and just let it fly. I would go down every fourth row and get good coverage. Don't forget to do it right before a good 1/2" of rain so it can get worked into the soil instead of evaporating. Last year, at planting time, I tilled all of the starter fertilizer and urea in half of my corn plots and the other half I tilled just the starter fertilizer and top dressed with urea later and I didn't notice any yield difference between the plots.

 

[Mike4282]

Thanks guys.. Do you think that it will be that much better side dressing or do as Browny says and broadcast every fourth row??

 

[bp fick]

Thanks guys.. Do you think that it will be that much better side dressing or do as Browny says and broadcast every fourth row??

I'd broadcast, if it is knee high and rain is coming. I'm thinking you'll have to decide on the every other row, versus every third row when you get out there. One good thing about urea is that the white pellet is easy to see your coverage.

If the corn is waist high, you will have to do every row and apply lightly, I'd guess. Once you get out there, you'll determine what has to be done.

 

[browny]

Thanks guys.. Do you think that it will be that much better side dressing or do as Browny says and broadcast every fourth row??

I should mention that I have 28" rows so I can get away with going every fourth row. If you have 36" rows then you may have to go every third row. You will be able to tell once you start spreading.

 

[jonyyuma]

I side dressed mine by hand with a hoe and 33% nitrate grains. it jumped when it rained.

 

[jbooth]

Thanks guys.. Do you think that it will be that much better side dressing or do as Browny says and broadcast every fourth row??

I faced the same problem when my corn was about the size you mentioned. I contacted my local CO-OP with the question of broadcasting. He did not recommend broadcasting. The Co-OP rep suggested that during broadcasting some of the pellets would get dispersed down the funnel created by the leaf attachment to the stalk and actually kill the corn where that occurred. I do/did not have the experience to know if this was legit or if he was just bored with selling the small amount I would need. As it turned out we have gone through a long dry spell and probably fertilization would have been detrimental anyway. I plan to use liquid fertilizer next year and believe I can control the amount applied by orifice size, ground speed and mix concentration. I feel a bit guilty when I ask for help from the people who make their living selling ag products and the amount I would use might buy them a cup of coffee. I am also interested in using in-furrow starter fertilizer. All this fretting just to feed deer that have got by for a long time without my help. I plant amounts in the range of to much to do by hand and to little for big expenditures. I also use a JD 71 planter (single row).

Forgot to mention my plans for liquid fertilizer are for using a Fimco ATV sprayer that I already own. Ibelieve it is doable by controlling mix strength, travel speed, and orifice size.

 

[blueriver]

I have done this to my corn plots with a boadcast Agri-Fab push spreader and just let it fly. I would go down every fourth row and get good coverage. Don't forget to do it right before a good 1/2" of rain so it can get worked into the soil instead of evaporating. Last year, at planting time, I tilled all of the starter fertilizer and urea in half of my corn plots and the other half I tilled just the starter fertilizer and top dressed with urea later and I didn't notice any yield difference between the plots.

I do the same with the broadcast ... works very well. I follow with a cultivator to get it in the ground.