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Thursday, June 20, 2013

Is your Corn Sulfur Deficient?

I heard a supplier agronomist talking about sulfur deficiencies recently.  The deficiency is easily identified by the striping on the leaf.  Your field may look yellow and you may think it is nitrogen, but leaf striping is from sulfur.  We like to see at least part of your nitrogen come from ammonium sulfate.  Elemental sulfur is a good alternative.  Rather than buying the expensive micro-nutrient mix, I add 40 to 50 ponds of sulfur to your fertilizer program.  Then see if you need the other micro-nutrients.  I think in general if you are seeing deficiency symptoms it is hurting your yield.  We are seeing a lot of deficiency this year.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

what's the science saying across your region about sulfer? Sure being overemphasized down here. you might be interested in http://graincrops.blogspot.com/2013/06/early-season-corn-nutrient-deficiencies.html

Dave Rahe said...

We are seeing declining soil test levels for Sulfur in those clients who are not adding some. Extension tells me all the deficiencies they have looked at are environmentally related. We have sandier soils in our large bottom lands that are definitely deficient.