Soil Fertility P and K

I attended a soil fertility seminar sponsored by Extension Service yesterday.  It was a telenet conference and well attended.  The presenters all gave science based, research data supported presentations.

Dr. Fabian Fernandez of University of Minnesota started the day discussing application rates and methods for Phosphorous and Potassium. He discussed the merits of banding vs. broadcast placement of fertilizer and how to soil sample in banded fields.  While I don't recall him saying it flat out, he advocated for multiple cores per sample.

He had research to support his saying that there is little difference in banding vs broadcast.  In one study he found that tillage method made a bigger difference than fertilizer placement.  Strip till did better than No-till.  He also said that you shoould not skimp on rate even if you band fertilizer.

He told us that we should avoid shortcuts when taking soil samples and use our soil test information to manage our P and K.