By ANN HINCH
Associate Editor

ATLANTA, Ind. — Balancing nutrient levels in soil back to the way nature intended is a big deal with Kyle Smith. The Beck’s Hybrids senior researcher was adamant on its importance during his talk at the annual “Becknology Days” at company headquarters late last week.

“You can’t just go out there (and apply) a high level of N,P and K and think you’re going to eventually grow 300-bushel corn,” opined Smith, an octogenarian whose research career stretches back to the mid-20th century. “God made the soil the proper balance, and farmers have got it all out of balance.”

Because 300 bushels an acre is still the brass ring for corn farmers, he shared some tips that might aid their quest. First, he suggested a base saturation soil test for specific components. The one some farmers still use, he said, was developed in the 1890s and tests only soil acidity, or pH, but doesn’t tell anything about how key nutrients are balanced.

Smith said the base saturation test measures cation exchange capacity, or CEC, and tells a farmer what percentage of each (potassium, or K, magnesium, calcium, sodium and hydrogen) is in their soil. Ideally, he said these respective percentages should be 3, 11, 75, 4 and 6 percent, and the overall pH level should be 6.4-6.8  – or, as Smith nicknamed it, “God’s ideal base saturation.”
It’s his opinion farmers put too much potash on for their corn.

If the level is much more than 3 percent, he explained, farmers should save on K and put their money instead into lime or nitrogen. Potash is necessary for plants photosynthesizing light into energy and forming proteins, but too much acts like sodium, leaching fertility from soil. He suggested application of 20,000-30,000 pounds per acre.

Smith is a fan of lime, or calcium, application to balance out high-K soils. It’s not a nutrient in itself, he said; what calcium does is make the actual nutrients easily available to the corn. He cautioned against using lime too high in magnesium and said his preferred balance is 7 parts calcium, 1 part magnesium.
Farmers, he added, have applied too much “harsh, salty plant food” for fertilizer, which he said kills the humus, or decomposed organic matter in soil. Too much makes the earth unpalatable for earthworms necessary to soil health; in fact, he said there are fields where growers had killed off the worms and they are trying to “reseed” them with nightcrawlers.

Smith recommends more application of green manure, preferably chicken waste – but cattle or hog manure is good if poultry isn’t available. He also said cover crops such as annual ryegrass, groundhog radishes, Austrian peas and crimson clover add beneficial nutrients and can be planted in the summer.

The planted cover on-site – just seeded Aug. 5 – was visible from the visitors’ tram later in the day, on a tour headed by fellow Beck’s researchers Toby Ripberger and Jason Gahimer.

Gahimer recommended drilling the Austrian pea seed, if it’s used, and noted the groundhog radishes seem particularly tasty to earthworms. He said Beck’s will be planting corn in the cover soil next spring and will compare results to double-crop corn planted nearby.

Many farmers, Smith said, are in a hurry to apply anhydrous in the fall if they finish shelling corn or cutting soybeans early enough. But if the ground is too dry and hard, it doesn’t do much good.

He thinks a spring pre-plant with urea if a grower is able to get their corn in the ground April 10-20 is best, with a sidedressing of nitrogen when it’s 8-10 inches tall. He also suggested applying Headline for maximum benefit immediately after pollination is complete.

As for P, Smith suggested applying it beside the row of corn rather than broadcasting, which he said is less useful to the plant.

When harvesting corn, he said to start when it’s at a moisture level of 25 percent; that way by the time harvest is finished, it’ll likely be down to 22 or lower.

Later, on the field tour, Ripberger talked about Beck’s “300 Challenge” it put in place two years ago – the idea is to make corn seed customers partners in finding ways to reach 300 bushels per acre. In this voluntary program, a customer sets aside 30 acres to plant to two corn hybrids and treats it differently than the rest of their annual crop – variances in fertilizer or herbicide application, increasing seeding density, irrigation or a number of other factors.

So far, Ripberger said nobody’s cracked the 300 ceiling, but Beck’s considers the Challenge a success because many participating farmers have increased yield significantly on test plots. Larry Holaday of Farmland, Ind., came close with 280 last year; Ripberger said what’s interesting is other Challenge farmers have done nearly as well all across Beck’s service area, with 250-plus yields in Ohio, Illinois and Kentucky.

Beck’s researchers have achieved 300-bushel corn, but Ripberger said it hasn’t been a steady increase each year. In 1994, they harvested a crop of 308.1 bushels per acre from one hybrid; in 2010, another yielded 304.7. Even the same hybrid is dependant on conditions, as illustrated by a variance among three plots in 2008 for the same one.

(Beck’s is also striving toward 100-bushel soybeans, but so far has only reached 94 at the high end.)

Beck’s outdoor test plots allow researchers to see how corn hybrids will do in some of the same conditions buyers face. “We did experience some of the same things that our customers experienced, in drown-out and replant situations” this year,” Ripberger said.

In one memorable June flood, he told how deep the water was that overflowed from nearby creeks into Beck’s Atlanta research plots. With a grin, he recalled how for years, Smith has peppered his Becknology presentations with personal fishing stories – then added his own, as he recounted while in a field surveying the flooded plant damage, he was bitten by a carp.
Yes – a carp. “I never thought I’d be fishing at Beck’s,” Ripberger added, to audience laughter.