MSU Extension MI Ag Ideas to Grow With

 - Kurt Steinke our MSU extension soil fertility specialist. He is one of them. So I'm gonna cue up his presentation. All right, so this is Dr. Kurt Steinke's presentation. I'll be kind of in the background. If you have any questions or comments or whatnot, feel free to put those into the Q&A. And by the way, if you have any questions for speakers who have already come and gone, so for example, for Dr. Andrewson, feel free to put those in. We'll forward those on to the presenters. And if your name is actually attached to that question, we'll make sure that you get your questions answered. All right, without further ado. This is Dr. Kurt Steinke. - Good morning everyone, I'd like to welcome everybody to this session of the Michigan Ag Ideas to grow with virtual conference. My name's Dr. Kurt Steinke. I'm the Soil Fertility and Nutrient Management Specialist here at Michigan State University. Like to thank everyone for taking the time to join us this morning. We're gonna focus a little bit on managing fertility in the time of supply chain and trade disruptions. There's a lot going on in the world. Some of this we've talked about quite a bit as the fall and winter has progressed. Some of it has come to fruition and, as far as predictions go going forward, we don't know, right? My crystal ball is probably about as clear as yours. So we're gonna talk about some things to think about now that we've turned the calendar to March. Heading into this next 2022 growing season. So the first thing on everybody's mind, undoubtedly is probably fertilizer prices, right? And I've talked a lot this winter about fertilizer prices should make one think. They might make you do a little bit more of the think, they might make you laugh, they might make you cry, they might make you do do all three, right? So if you look at where prices are, the latest estimate we have is from about February 10th. They didn't change all that much from about February 24th. So they've been pretty steady here up till the last week due to some current events going on in the world, predominantly the Ukraine and Russia conflict. So if you look at where prices are, we're still looking at nitrogen near or around a dollar a pound. You'll get estimates that fluctuate within a couple cents. I've seen 94, 95 cents and upwards to about a dollar, $2 three a pound. And again, all depend a little bit on if you're looking at Urea, UN or anhydrous ammonia. Phosphorus, we're still looking at around 84, 85 cents a pound. Price estimate on the screen is looking at map. And then potash, we're looking at anywhere from about 63 64, up to about 67 68 cents a pound for K2O. So that gives you a little bit of an idea of where we're at. Now it's interesting, now's punching some numbers on some other data within the last couple of weeks. You don't have to go back too far, maybe about a year and a half, two years ago, and we still saw nitrogen at this time of year, about 36 38 cents a pound. Go back, maybe just over a year ago, we were still maybe in that 42, 43 cents a pound. So things have changed dramatically. So everyone should really think about what their bottom line looks like, given the higher input prices. Now, there are a little bit higher commodity prices too, but the input prices are also quite high. Now, if you look at year to year fertilizer pricing, which is what we're looking at on this graph here, look at those blue bars there. That's the percent change from fall 21 compared to spring 21. So this fall that we just wrapped up versus planting time this last season. So if you look along at the bottom, you can see anhydrous urea liquid 28 DAP and potash. Look at those blue bars. You're looking at anywhere from about 14 to 54% price change. Now I think the real story is if you look at those red bars, that's percent change from this last fall that we just wrapped up versus spring of 20. So planting season two years ago at this point. That's where the big change really comes into play, right? You're looking at anywhere from about 60 to 87% price differential, just in the cost of our macronutrient fertilizers. Now to put this in perspective a little bit, are we in unchartered territory? Yes and no. So if you look at fertilizer expense as a share of budgeted revenue for 2022, you're looking at about 18%. That's up about a point from this time last year. And if you look at that compared to maybe two years ago, yeah, we're up maybe 3, 4%. If you look at it, maybe 2019 or about 17. Go back to 2015, we're about 20%. Now, the thing to keep in mind is, 15 and 16 were pretty good crop production years here in the state of Michigan. Obviously, depending on what your rotation is, what crop you're growing. So that made up for some of that expense. So some of this cost could be offset by a productive growing season. But on the other hand, the other issue that I think a lot of us are discussing is can we even receive sufficient supply of whatever product we need going into the 2022 growing season? And that question still remains to be determined. And before I get going too far here, there's a couple of reasons and I'll back up a slide or two here, as to why we see some of these high prices right now. There's a number of factors at play. And a lot of this has come together in the last six to nine months. Now, I know there's a lot of focus on what has happened in the last one to two weeks, but you start looking at some of the other events that have gone the last six to nine months. You look at economic sanctions put on a country like Belarus. So I just discovered, I think last fall that Belarus, I believe is the third largest producer of potash in the world. So sanctions on there will limited some of that potash supply. You look at, there've been some tariffs on phosphate fertilizers coming from overseas, specifically looking at Moroccan phosphate. You start looking at some production curtailments that we've seen across the world from higher energy costs, right? Natural gases, more et cetera. We need that to produce N fertilizers. You start looking over in Asia, the push to rebuild the livestock herd, specifically the swine herd. So they're really pushing higher grain yields and imports to rebuild some of those stocks. We know energy volatility is here. I think the last seven to 10 days can speak volumes with regards to that. We had a potash mine in North America get flooded out last year, so that impact some production costs. And so there's a number of factors at play here that have really caused some of these price increases. So it's not just one specific instance. I know a lot of the thought processes on what is happening overseas right now, as we film this episode here. But there's been some of these factors that have been brewing for quite a bit of time. And there's just a number of factors that have all come together here in the last six to nine months that have caused some of these higher fertilizer prices. So what can we do about it, right. Number of factors. I always like to throw out this question out there is why do we soil test, right? It's probably a little bit of a bated question. But why do we soil test? Very common question and what is the answer? Well, we gotta find out what's in this soil, right? Some nutrients, not all, can be stored in the soil. So we'll focus predominantly here on something like P and K. They can be stored in the soil and it's difficult to know how much or what to apply if you don't have an up to date soil test. So one of the first things, if you still have time this spring to go out and do is to get an up to date soil test, right? We had a very wet fall. Some of you may not have been able to soil sample, like you routinely do due to the wet fall. Still go out, get an up to date soil test here in the spring. If you get a soil test here in the spring, one thing you want to be aware of is if you conventionally have soil tested in the fall for a number of years. Be cautious of comparing a spring soil sampling with a fall soil sampling 'cause a nutrient like potash could be quite different between a fall and spring sampling. So get an up-to-date soil test. If you think you have one, double check, look at that date that's on that soil test that you might have on your computer or sitting in a drawer in the file cabinet at home, 'cause time passes quickly, right? We've already turned the calendar to March. It'll be mid-March here soon. Some of us might think we took a soil test on field A or B within the last couple of years. And if you look at that soil test report, that date might actually be maybe 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 years old, right? So that would be one of the first things to do. Next thing to do is look at the numbers on that soil test report and realize it's okay not to apply if that soil test does not warrant an application. Many times we get caught into this habit of ours, right? We've always applied maybe Broadcast Map or maybe 1034O or Broadcast Potash, et cetera. It's okay not to apply but you gotta know what that soil test level is. And you gotta know what those critical levels are for that specific crop or that specific rotation. We'll hit that here a little bit yet this morning, but I just want you to realize if you understand that, it's okay not to apply if that soil test does not warrant that application. And use what you have accumulated. And a great analogy I've been using all winter is, think of the soil as a bank, right? And what do we do at the bank? In the good old days, we'd get a paycheck maybe every Friday, every other Friday, and you go to the bank and you make a deposit, right? Well, at some point you make a withdrawal, think of the soil as the same way. When you fertile soils, what do we do? We make a deposit, right? And hopefully we can hang on to some of that phosphorus, some of that potassium, some of those other nutrients that get applied and we kind of build those up over time, right? This might be one of those years, instead of making a deposit, you make a withdrawal. But you don't know until you get up to date soil tests. So that would be something to consider. And we still have time to do that yet here this spring. And I throw this fact up here at the bottom, you look at some updated lab numbers. You look at 2022, we're still looking at about 67% of Michigan soils test high or very high in soil test phosphorus. And in many of those scenarios, we probably would be okay without a phosphorus application. So take a look at that soil test report, really consider what you do or do not need to apply and then take action accordingly. Now, if you look at this next slide, we're looking at traditionally what has been the approach to P and K fertilization or P and K management in the tri-state region. That tri-state region being Indiana, Ohio and Michigan. So you're really you looking at that build up and maintained philosophy, right? If you can follow my arrow long on this little graph here, we see what that critical level might be, right? We wanna maintain between that critical level and that maintenance limit. Then below that critical level that's where we tend to wanna build up those soil test concentrations over time so we can get them passed above that critical level. So fertilizer applied to soils with an optimal soil test, those are designed to maintain that soil test at those optimal values. There's a window here in between this critical level and that maintenance limit that we wanna keep specifically that soil test phosphorus and soil test potassium concentration. Now, if you look down towards the bottom of this chart, in that optimal zone, that yield response, the fertilizer is not expected. That does not mean you may not see a biomass response. Oftentimes people confuse a biomass response in the field with a yield response. Just because that corn or that soy or that wheat might look better or be bigger or be greener earlier in the season or even mid-season, does not necessarily mean that will equate into a yield response. When we get below that critical level, you can see written in red down here, when we're deficient, that yield response, the fertilizer becomes more likely. Again, it's not guaranteed, but the likelihood or the probability goes up. And when we get above this maintenance zone, we're in this efficiency zone and we no longer have that draw down value. So there's really no agronomic reason to apply fertilizer when we get above this maintenance limit. So adding fertilizer may increase your yield below the critical level. I'll go over those critical levels here in a second. The further below that critical level, the more likely and larger the response to fertilizer will be. So if your critical level is 15 parts per million, if you're 14 or 13 or maybe down in single digits, 7, 6, 5, 4, something like that, the further below critical, the more likely and larger that response to that applied fertilizer product might be. When you look at the tri-state recommendations for that maintenance range, when we get in this zone, it's crop removal for phosphorus and then crop removal for potassium. Michigan is a little bit different than Indiana and Ohio. We don't necessarily have this extra 20 units of K2O per acre for potassium in Michigan. One of the driving factors there is, we have a lot lower CEC on many of our production soils, compared to the other two states. So that's the driving factor. And we don't just don't necessarily see that response with that additional 20 pounds of K2O. So rule of thumb going into 2022 would be to apply phosphorus potassium in those fields below that critical level. The other thing, try to use what you've accumulated, where you are above that critical level. This build and maintain approach to phosphorus and potassium is precisely structured for the current conditions that we are in. When prices are high and your soil test levels are optimal or acceptable, try to utilize what you've built up over time. And we'll see where prices go here in the next six to 18 months. They might go down next year and it might be much more conducive up to your bottom line to apply something like phosphorus and potassium, maybe a year from now or two years from now, right? Depending on what that soil test level precisely is. So a good rule of thumb here would be to apply P and K only in those fields where you are below critical for this coming growing season, because that is where you are much more likely to see a response and a much larger response to applied P and K fertilizer. Now, what are those critical levels? We talked about those a little bit. Those critical levels and maintenance limits for corn and soybean. For phosphorus, we're looking at a critical level of about 20 parts per million, all right? And that maintenance limit would be about 40 parts per million. So if you go over to the graph we have here, that critical level for corn and soybean for phosphorus, would be about 20 parts per million. And that would extend for about out another 20 parts million up to that maintenance limit, right? So that maintenance range or that maintenance zone would be about 20 to 40 parts per million. Potassium's a little bit different. We have a broken down into predominantly our coarse textured versus our fine textured soils, right? CEC below five would be more of our coarse textured soil. Our finer textured soils would be a CEC above five. Now you get into your loamy sands and your sandy loams, you kind of get into that CEC six, seven, and eight in that range. You can kind of go either side of what this recommendation looks like, right? But typically, we consider those coarse textured soils as those that are CEC of five and 100. So the critical level in those scenarios would be about 100 parts per million, right? So that critical level in coarse textured soil would be a critical level of 100 part per million for potassium. And that would extend up to then about 130 parts per million. So that maintenance zone extends for about 30 PPM. In your finer textured soils, that critical level becomes about 120 parts per million for K and that extends up to about 170 parts per million. So it's a little bit bigger of a maintenance zone or maintenance range for those finer textured soils. And again, look at those guide phrases at the bottom here in red, green, and blue, to help remind you when you're in that maintenance zone that yield response, the fertilizer is not necessarily expected. Now, what are those crop removal rates? If you look at crop removal rates for corn, soybean and wheat, we're looking at for corn about 0.35 pounds of P2O5 per bushel, for K2O about 0.20 pounds of K2O per bushel, soybean, about 0.8 and 1.15 respectively. And for wheat you're looking at about .50 and .25 pounds of P2O5 and K2O respectively removed per bushel. So that gives you some idea on how much removal you might actually get through this year's cropping rotation. So you can kind of think about whatever your yield potential might be. Make sure it's realistic. What we call a realistic yield potential, something that is achievable in one out of two years. So it can't be something, or it can't be a number that's achieved maybe one out of 10 years. It has to be realistic, has to be achievable. And that is what we tend to find as something that's achievable in about one out of two years. It can multiply that yield potential times that grain removal, and that'll give you some of that or some indication as to how much P2O5 and K2O might be removed from that specific field. Now to give you a rule of thumb, how much will my so test levels change if I decide not to add something like potash this year. So if look at about 170 bushel corn grain removes about 0.20 pounds of K2O per bushel, that gives you about 34 pounds of K2O removed per acre. Now as a general rule, we look at it, it takes about eight to 20 pounds of K2O to change that soil test by about one per per million. The eight pounds would be closer to your coarse textured soils. The 20 pounds would be more towards your finer textured soils. So as a rule of thumb, we'll take it moving average here. Let's say we use the number 12 as an average, you take the amount of K2O removed in that grain divided by 12. You might only drop your soil test K level by about three parts per million. Now realize we have soil variability, right? And so you if don't have a perfect field that has the same CEC, the same buffering capacity across all 500 or a 1000 acres, right? So it's gonna change. So these numbers could change and fluctuate a little bit as you go across that field, but it gives you some idea, especially if you're one of those high or very high soil test concentrations on how much that soil test level might actually drop this growing season. You look at something like soybeans, let's say we have 55 bushel beans. You look at 1.15 pounds of K2O removed for bushel. You're gonna take out about 63 pounds of K2O. So quite a bit more than that corn grain. Soybeans remove quite a bit more potassium divide that by 12, and you would drop your soil test there abouts by about five parts per million. All right, so that gives you some idea on how much that soil test low level may actually drop going into this growing season if you decide not to apply something like K fertilizer. We'll do the same thing with phosphorus. So if you look at 170 bushel corn grain, you're looking at about 0.35 pounds removed per bushel. It gives you close to about 60 pounds of P2O5 removed per acre. Same thing, it takes anywhere from between 10 to 36 pounds, P2O5, to adjust that soil test by about one part per million. That 10 would be more on your coarse texture, right? Sands that 36 more towards your finer textured soils. Let's say we pick 20 as an average, or as a moving average for this example, you're looking at 59, 1/2 pounds that by 20. Here again, you would only drop your soil test by about three parts per million. 55 bushel beans go through the same math plug and chunks of numbers here. You're looking at removing about 44 pounds of P2O5, and that would drop your soil test by about between two and three parts per million. So where do we go from here? So I'll back up a slide or two. We look at where those critical levels are. You kind of see how much grain removal you get with those specific yield potentials. So sit down, punch some numbers, do some math. If you're in that K category on a fine textured soil and you're 170 plus, you might be okay, even in that optimal zone, you'll be okay. You're not going to decline those soil test K concentrations dramatically especially if you're in the mid to higher end of that optimal range, even on some of those sandy soils. Well phosphorus, same thing. Look at that target, see where you're at. I think last time I looked the average soil test phosphorous concentration across all of Michigan was probably still in about the low 50s, right? Probably anywhere between about 45 and 55 parts per million by P one. So again, look at where that yield potential is and how much grain removal you might have and you'll probably be okay not applying phosphorus this growing season. But what does it all depend on getting an up to date soil test if you do not currently have one. The other thing I'm gonna touch on here quick, I'm not gonna talk too much about this is make sure you look at pH right. So pH is still just as important today as it was 50, 60, 70 years ago. And it does affect different crops in a little bit of a different manner. So if you look at soil acidity, it affects crops in a little different manner. Why, you look at something like soybeans. Soybeans are not corn, right? A lot of times when we start talking about how crops behave in the field, what nutrient deficiencies look like in a certain crop, we think of corn, right? But when you start talking about soybeans, those N fixing bacteria typically require a pH greater than 5.4. And so we tend to get some issues with N fixation when we get near that 5.4 target and drop below that 5.4 target. So typically we wanna lime with that top soil pH starts touching those mid fives around 5.5, and that sub soil pH drops just below 6.0. So we see that next bullet point where pH becomes, or we're liming becomes a little bit more profitable in an Alfalfa corn soy rotation, usually around a pH of six. In a corn soy rotation, mid fives, continuous corn you can probably get that pH down to the low fives before needing to lime. So given the current situation that we're in, you look at the price of soil amendments, you look at the price of fertilizers. Lime might be your most cost effective soil amendment. And maybe even if you lumping fertilizer costs too, might be your most cost effective addition, this growing season, depending on where that pH is at. I've seen some really awkward and low pHs come in over the last year, year and a half. I've seen pHs down the low fives, high fours. They even see something that came in down in the low 4s. So take a look at that pH 'cause it still dictates what nutrients are or not available in that specific growing season. And remember for best results, you make sure you wanna apply that lime well ahead of planting to allow sufficient time to neutralize that soil acidity. So something a little bit different, wanna change gears here just for a second. And we wrapped up some work and got some work published this year, looking at what causes some of the variability that we see in something like N rates on corn. And so one thing I want to touch on is if you look at what percent of variability in corn, economic optimum N rates might be caused by the weather. So we had a publication come out that included data from about 19 states in Canada, close to 500 site years, we had close to 700 N response curves. So I wanna throw this up there. What percent of variability in corn, economic optimal N rates is caused by weather? Gave you a couple options there, A, B, C, D and E. Gave you a second or two to think what the correct answer was that we discovered. And it was actually letter D there. About 66% of the variability in corn economic optimal N rates was caused by the weather. Really makes you think, right? 'Cause we still can't control the weather. And that still dictates a lot of what we see happening in the field as that growing season progresses. Now the same study here. Want to ask a little bit different question. Weather factors governed what percentage of all components of that corn N response process. So again, we're looking at close to 500 site years, 700 N response curves, give you a couple options there. A E B C D E, think about it once. What percent of all components of the corn N response process are governed by weather? All right, got your answer. C, about 75% of all components of that corn N response process were governed by weather factors. What kind of weather factors are we looking at here? So if you look at challenges, rainfalls a challenge each and every year. Some years it's a lot, some years it's not enough. You look at what we saw this last growing season. You're looking at a graph here outta Lansing and you can see for the year we're about one and a inches greater than we were in 2020. But think back now to spring of 21, right? Remember how dry it was here in South Central, Michigan. If you look at the graph, try to put my cursor here. Remember that April, May early June time period, man, I think we went about seven to eight weeks, six to eight weeks where you picked up about a half inch of rain. And that half inch of rain came in about half dozen rainfall events. So it was dry, it was bone dry. And so that's something we've seen here now at the last, I'll say the last decade or so. It's these four to six, six to eight week periods where we just don't get much rainfall. And you feel like at 2021, what happened? Stayed dry up until about that third week of June. And then once we hit that third week of June, we got about eight inches in three days, right? We stayed wet. July was pretty normal. Then we got a little bit drier again towards end of summer. About second or third week in August, we got another one of these big rainfall events where we got about six inches, I believe in a day or two. And then we just never really dry it out as the rest of autumn progressed, right? Days get shorter, it stayed wet. Precipitation was at or near normal for September and October, but we really just never dried out as that season or as that autumn progressed, so we stayed wet. But this is one of those challenges that we talk about that climate variability. And we've seen again, these four to six, six to eight week windows appear here the last, if you go back about the last 10 or 15 years, and that's one of the things that can impact your crop performance going into spring. So if you look at some of the variability we saw in our corn stance spring of 2021. I got two pictures on the screen here. Picture on the left, you can can see the rows of corn and you can see emergence is pretty spotty. Picture on the right, you can see emergence was pretty decent, right? Now, what's the difference between the picture on the left versus the picture on the right? Look at the residue that's on that ground, right? That picture on the left was corn following corn. The picture on the right was corn following soybean, right? So that soybean over breaks down, created a much more mellow seed bed, much greater seed to so contact much greater, probably a little bit more consistent moisture in that furrow versus picture on the left, where we had corn on corn. We did not get near the uniform stand that we saw with the picture on the right. In 2021 was unique. That picture on the left, I would say for probably June, July and early August. If you focus early in the season, mid to late June, we probably had anywhere from VE corn to V2 corn to V6, V8 and all the way up to R1 corn all within probably a 10, 15 or 20 foot sector of that field at any one point in time. All right, it was really variable and really never caught up due to how dry it was early in the season. Picture on the right where we were falling soybean really didn't have too many of those issues. So if we go through one of these periods again this year, bear in mind that that could be the cause of some of your stand variability. Now I always talk about this five word phrase. Seems so simple, start right to finish well. This is where we've done a lot of work with starter fertilizer over the years on corn and wheat. We continue to do some on soybean also. Try to get that plant off to a good start and why? To capitalize on those mid to late seasoned environmental conditions. And why does this become such a big deal? Well, if you look at rainfall variability, right? And if you've seen me talk before I try to update this each and every year, so this is for the Lansing area. I went back about the last, what I got on there 15, 16 years, all the way back to 2006, looking at April May and June, right? And this is numbers in compared to our 30 year average. So any number appearing in red is about greater than a 33% reduction from our 30 year average. Any number in green is greater than a 33% increase from our 30 year average and anything in black is within those realms. So within that less than 33% on either side of that 30 year average. And so you can see you added up and you look what's happened over the last 15, 16 years. You're looking at about 25% of the time we're excessively dry, 25% of the time were excessively wet and half the time we're normal. Good luck, good luck managing those early spring conditions. We've seen these conditions appear time and time again. April's usually the month that really impacts our wheat crop. And then June obviously is the month that really impacts that corn crop. And so when I talk about that start right to finish well concept, that's why we emphasize it so much. It's they get that plant off to a good start early in the season, 'cause we don't know what May might look like, what June may look like. We've seen hot, we've seen cold, we've seen dry, we've seen wet. You could get any combination of those, right? And it can happen in a short period of time. So that's where that idea of starter fertilizer can really come into play. Now the thing we gotta talk about here is it going to have a positive effect each and every year, right? Kind of setting you up there. The answer is probably not. If you look at 2021 was one of those years. You look at those corn cobs picture I took in the top left there. That's where we applied all of our nitrogen at about V4. We ended up with about 181 bushels. If you look at the bottom there or that bottom cob picture, you see there, that's where we ended up with about 161 bushels. So (indistinct) apply it at V4 side dress, 181 bushels. 40 units of ended a two by two with 135 N at V4 side dress. So same quantity of N as above we saw 161 bushels and why? What happened this last spring? It was dry, right? We saw those extremely dry conditions. So we didn't get very good usage out of that two by two, out of that starter fertilizer at that point of the season. Now you start looking at where we applied olive ran at V12. So late vegetative getting close to tassel time. 171 bushel where we went with 40 units of N two by 2, 135 N at V12. Again, we saw this yield reduction 160 bushels. Why dry conditions, right? It's tough to get good use of that starter when it was so dry that we saw. Now, in some years, we tend to see a better response to subsurface applied starter under those dry conditions, but you still have to have water, right? You still have to have water to move those nutrients to that plant root. And that's exactly what we did not have this last spring. Like I said earlier, we had about a half inch rain in about six, seven or eight week period there in springtime. It was just dry and it could not tap into that starter fertilizer. The one other slide I wanna show you here to keep in mind is where we applied everything at V12. Again, 171 bushels where we went with about 80 units of N two by two and 95 at V12. That's where we started to see that increase. So what's the take home point here, right? I always talk about side dress application timing. There's not a right or wrong answer, but the thing you have to remember is if you go with a late vegetative side dress timing for whatever reason, whether it's intended that way or whether maybe we get into a window where we can't side dress in our normal window, if you go with a late vegetative side dress application, we have to give that plant enough nitrogen or enough fuel to get to that side dress application timing. And in many cases, when we start looking at side dressing at V12 and later, 40 units N two by two is not sufficient. Many times it's in about that 60 to 80 units of N that has to be applied in that two by two to get to that late vegetative side dress application timing. So that's just a little tidbit to keep in mind as we move towards the coming 2022 growing season. Getting close to the end here. Wanna wrap up with photo you're looking at here, picture on the left. You can see that corn plant on the left had about 80 units of P2O5 applied PPI, so pre-plant incorporated. This corn plant here on the right had about 80 units of P205 applied in a two by two. So this was using map. You look at combine goes through yield difference, not significant, 194 versus 200 bushels did not see a yield response. So this is one of those cases where we see this tremendous biomass response. But again, you want to make sure you don't confuse a biomass response with a yield response. Same thing with the picture on the right. You look at we had about 80 units of P2O5 applied PPI using a twelve forty oh ten one MESZ product versus 80 units of P2O5 applied in a two by two. Again, we see this tremendous early season growth response combine goes through, 185 versus 185 bushels to the acre. Really not significant across that specific study. So why, why do we see this biomass response but it didn't necessarily translate to yield response. Get a soil test. Soil test level in this specific scenario was just above 25 parts for million (indistinct) P one. So we're not expected to see a grain yield response, right? And so that's why we talk about soil testing and trying to get an up to date soil test for this coming growing season. So that's all the slides I have for you this morning. I did get a couple questions that some folks wanted answered as I got towards the end of talk today. And we'll talk about that here a little bit. Couple things I wanna emphasize first to wrap up. That build and maintain philosophy that we talked about with P and K, that is that mentality, that philosophy is structured for the current conditions that we're in. So make sure you apply and focus those P and K applications typically only in those fields that are below that critical level, right? And use what you've accumulated from other years until prices improve and your bottom line can approve. Second point, it's okay not to apply if that soil test does not warrant an application. Thirdly, understand how much your soil test phosphorus and soil test potassium levels may decrease if you don't apply. Through those examples up there, given those situations based on yield potential and grain removal and whatnot. So you can punch some numbers and figure that out. And if you look at where your savings might come from this growing season, your savings will most likely be in P and K depending on your soil test value and not necessarily reducing your N application. That's assuming you can get sufficient N fertilizer product, right? That could be a big question mark coming forward here in the spring yet too. But your real savings will probably be in P and K and not necessarily reducing N in your N responsive crops. Couple questions came up. I've seen a lot of growers that might have gotten a good price on potash last fall. And did some fall potash applications. Keep in mind if you're on a fine textured soil, that's probably okay and you might be okay. If you're on a coarse textured soil. So again and a CEC five and under, we can't lose potash over the course of winter, right? We've had quite a few winter rains here as of late. We got that snow melt that's wrapping up. Although I hear we might get some more coming up soon. We can lose potash and leach a little potash with those fall K applications on those coarse textured soils. So be cautious of those. Other ideas, there's been some discussion of maybe using inhibitors, nitrification inhibitors, UASE inhibitors, things like that. Things to keep in mind is your UASE inhibitor remember is intended for surface N applications. If you incorporate your end, that's not necessarily something you wanna use. It's intended for those surface and applications to keep that N from volatilizing off the soil surface. Those nitrification inhibitors are intended to prevent denitrification and leaching N losses. So if you don't have leaching scenarios or you don't have denitrification scenarios, you may not necessarily need to consider something like a nitrification inhibitor. And remember, although some of these inhibitors can limit our N losses, in some cases they could also limit yield. If for instance, you might tie that N up or keep it from transforming to nitrate and keep it in ammonium form for a bit too long, you can actually see a little bit of yield reduction in that manner and keep in mind with all of these inhibitor products, you need N loss conditions for a positive response. If you do not have N loss conditions, there is no reason to expect. You will see a positive response to a lot of those products. So I will wrap it up there. As always, take a look at our website soil.msu.edu. Take a look. I got my email listed right there also. If there's any more questions or concerns, feel free to reach out to me. Thank you for taking the time here today. Hope you enjoy the rest of the meeting and feel free to get ahold of me with any other questions. Appreciate it, stay well everyone.