The Cross Section, Volume 33, Number 3, March 1987 Page: 4
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Page 4 THE CROSS SECTION March 1987
CROP YIELDS ...
continued from page 2
days. He's made as much as 900
pounds to the acre, and his current
yield is 750 pounds per acre. He's got
a real good yield on that place.
"That's why we have never changed
our program. I just feel that if a guy
wants to go out and shoot for
maximum production, he can't do it
without fertilizer," states Methvin.
Old-Fashion Ferlhllzer Basics
Paul Kitchens, who farms near Slaton
in the Posey community, fertilizes the
old-fashioned way. He uses manure
from a nearby feedlot to fertilize his
3,350 acres of mostly cotton and grain
sorghum. Kitchens has been farming
since 1961 and has used manure as
fertilizer off and on for about 17 years.
"I'm talking about manure fertilizer,"
says Kitchens, "I'm real fortunate to be
pretty close to a big feedlot. This has
really helped my operation a lot."
Like the other farmers, Kitchens
observes the best results when he
plows in his fertilizer. He notes, "I like
to deep break the manure in about 10
or 12 inches deep. The best results I've
had are putting the manure on milo
stubble and then rotating it with
cotton. In a dry year the manure can be
a disadvantage. If it's hot and you just
have marginal moisture to get the crop
up, with manure you might not get the
crop up. I think the manure works
better if you turn it under."
Kitchens applies the manure fertil-
izer with a cotton yield goal of 750
pounds per acre on dryland. "If the
weather cooperates, we can maintainthat yield," he says. "We had some
cotton in 1984 that made two bales per
acre. In 1985, the weather was about
the same, but the cotton made only 1.5
bales per acre."
Kitchens applies manure in the
winter about every three years. He
usually side dresses nitrogen every
second or third year because the
manure loses nitrogen after the first or
second year, he says.
Comparison Provrs Fertility Succen
The results from the manure
application seem to be pretty good.
Kitchens compared two blocks of land.
One 31-acre block, which had no fertil-
izer applied for several years, yielded
1,162.5 pounds per acre of grain
sorghum. Kitchens applied seven tons
per acre of manure to another 70-acre
block of land. This acreage yielded
1,965.14 pounds per acre of grain sor-
ghum, a yield increase of 803 pounds
per acre over the unfertilized block.
In other examples, Kitchens deep
broke 10 tons of manure fertilizer in at
10 to 12 inches deep along with apply-
ing Treflan on 89.9 acres. The block
yielded 4,585 pounds per acre of grain
sorghum. On a 99.5-acre field where
seven tons of manure fertilizer was
applied in 1983 without Treflan, the
carry-over effects of the manure helped
hold his yield up to 4,300 pounds per
acre of grain sorghum in 1986.
Although his results are shown with
grain sorghum, Kitchens says cotton
will respond to fertilizer from manure
as well. "I feel like you can gain at least
a quarter to half a bale more cotton
using barnyard manure," he says.
Applying seven tons of manure perjilt- + -.
H'---
NSSCT1ON
THE CROSS SECTION (UISPS 564-920)A MONTHLY PUBLICATION OF THE HIGH
PLAINS UNDERGROUND WATER
CONSERVATION DISTRICT NO. 1
2930 Avenue Q, Lubbock, Texas 79405
Telephone (806) 762-0181
KATHY REDEKER, Editor
Second Class Postage Paid at Lubbock, Texas
District Office at Lubbock
A. Wayne Wyatt .................. ...Manager
Ken Carver .... ... ...........Asst. Manager
Don McReynolds ............ . .... . . ...GeologistCindy Gestes.. . . . . . . ...........Geologist
Keith Whitworth ... ................ . .Draftsman
Becca Williams ............... Permits-Librarian
Obbie Goolsby...........Engineer Technician
Dan Seale .............. ..Engineer Technician
Dennis Sensenbrenner . . . . . .. . ........ .Geologist
Jerry Funck ............... ..Agricultural Engineer
Richard Howard .... ................ .Draftsman
Jqhnita Franklin ............. . . . . . . .. Bookkeeper
Bobbie Bramblett .. . ......... Receptionist-Secretary
Rosie Risinger ................. Executive Secretary
Beth Snell .........Assistant, Information/Educationacre on dryland at $2.50 per ton,
Kitchens figures his fertilizer costs to
be about $21.70 per acre after includ-
ing transportation costs of 12 cents per
ton per mile. On irrigated land he ap-
plies 10 tons of manure per acre.
Not only is the manure a relatively
inexpensive form of fertilizer, but it
contains most of the necessary soil nu-
trients as well. Kitchens runs tests on
manure to see how much nitrogen is
in it.
He explains, "I analyzed some
manure. We had some that was fresh
out of the pens and some that had been
piled up for about a year. There was
very little difference in it. The fresh
manure had more moisture in it, but by
the time you take the moisture out, it
was just about the same as dry in
nutrients. The nitrogen was about 2.8
percent and phosphate about threepercent. It has a lot of good trace
elements in it."
Kitchens, Henson, Thomas and
Methvin described their ideas on soil
fertility management to participants at
the SoilFertility Conference, February
19, at the Texas A&M University
Agricultural Research and Extension
Center in Lubbock. Eddie Teeter, a
Lockney farmer, also told about his
experiences with a soil fertility/water
management program, which was
descr hed in the December 1986 issue
of The Cross Section. The conference
was sponsored by the High Plains
Water District in cooperation with the
Soil Conservation Service, the Texas
Agricultural Extension Service, the
Texas Agricultural Experiment Station
and the College of Agricultural
Sciences at Texas Tech University.
-BSPhosphorus ... continued from page 1
rig, Lee has had good luck in getting
the phosphorus down deep. "With the
back-swept chisel we don't have the
trash build up on the chisel."
Working with George Cunningham,
Lee placed a band of phosphorus at a
depth of about 13 inches on flat-tilled
ground with the back-swept chisel rig.
Lee explains that when the soil is
bedded up and planted, the phos-
phorus will be about 17 to 18 inches
below the seed bed.
"We started out chiseling about four
inches to the side of last year's seed
bed. At four inches, it balled up too
much. Next, we moved over to about
six inches from the center of the bed."
Moving that far over has worked pretty
well.
"This year we've got perfect soil
moisture conditions for putting
phosphorus deep with the rig we
developed." Lee notes that if the soils
were drier, he probably couldn't get
anything down that deep; and if he
did, the equipment probably would not
hold together.
In another field application of the
back-swept chisel rig, Lee worked with
Bill Johnston. For this trial, Lee added
a refinement to the deep placement rig.
He added a second hole higher up on
the fertilizer line to apply phosphorus
at two depths simultaneously. The
upper hole will emit the phosphorus
six to seven inches deep, and the
bottom hole will emit phosphorus 14 to16 inches deep. Time will tell just how
import-ant this refinement will be in
terms of crop yields.
Lee says he has a lot of customers
that a re interested in working on their
fertility programs this year, particularly
with phosphorus deep placement. At
this point, Lee is advising his patrons
to take their fertilizer dollars and do a
good job of fertilizing a few acres,
instead of trying to spread a limited
amount of fertilizer out over their entire
field. This way, he tells his patrons,
they will really see if the extra money
spent on fertility will pay for itself.
Lee says that his patrons will get
more benefit out of the deep placement
of phosphorus than they will from
broadcasting phosphorus on the sur-
face and disking it in. With the two-in-
and-one-out planting pattern that is
commonly used in his area, Lee rea-
sons tat his customers will be getting
one-tbird more fertilizer on the rows
they are planting than if they broadcast
their fertilizer across the field.
Lee notes, "I've been working with
the fertilizer business since 1968, and
we're still doing it like we always have
- broadcasting phosphorus and turn-
ing it under a maximum depth of four
inches." As a result of the recent work
done concerning soil fertility, Lee says
it's time for a change; and he wants to
see just how he can accomplish deep
placement of phosphorus with limited
effort and input expense. -KRTHE CROSS SECTION (USPS 564-920)
HIGH PLAINS UNDERGROUND WATER
CONSERVATION DISTRICT NO. 1
2930 AVENUE 0
LUBBOCK, TEXAS 79405SECOND CLASS PERMIT
T HE CR O SS S E C TIO N
March 1987
Page 4
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High Plains Underground Water Conservation District No. 1 (Tex.). The Cross Section, Volume 33, Number 3, March 1987, periodical, March 1987; Lubbock, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth1533144/m1/4/?q=%22~1%22~1&rotate=90: accessed July 16, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting UNT Libraries Government Documents Department.