Optimizing Phosphorus Management for Corn Growth and Yield
20 Nov 243m 3s

Temple and Mike talk about the importance of phosphorus in corn production, emphasizing its critical role in root development and energy production, particularly during the photosynthetic process. 75% of phosphorus uptake occurs during the reproductive stages, making late-season availability crucial for maximizing grain fill.

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00:00:06 So phosphorus to me is a very important nutrient. If you look at the photosynthetic cycle within a plant, which all these plants, 00:00:13 corn, so I don't care what you're doing. Even the plants, the weeds on the ground here in front of me, all use sunlights, convert to energy for their life. 00:00:22 So phosphorus grows roots, builds energy, right? So we need that in that plant and we also need it because most of the times in the early season, 00:00:30 that's a cool wet environment. That's when you can get the purpling. It's harder to pull phosphorus up at the 00:00:35 beginning than it is any other time. Now, us out here where I am out here in Maryland, we have a nutrient management plan. 00:00:42 So I only get to put on a certain amount of phosphorus. So what I do is I put some of it up front, just enough to get me by, to get me going, build that root system, 00:00:51 get a plant full of energy, and start building those roots around. So I'm trying to build that into that plant, 00:00:57 but I'm not gonna put all of it up front. Keep in mind, 75% of the needs of phosphorus in a plant's life are 00:01:04 in the reproductive stages. And sometimes pho phosphorus ain't very mobile in the soil to begin with. 00:01:10 Plant has to go search for it, and it can get tied up pretty easily. Calcium, iron, aluminum could all bond 00:01:17 because of the charges to phosphorus. So we're trying to find ways to make it more available. We make sure we have enough phosphorus by testing it. 00:01:24 Uh, so we'll do test tissue testing, soil testing. We want to know how much the soil's giving us and how much the plant's taking up. 00:01:31 That's what we focus on with phosphorus, is making a more plant available when we need it, which is late season. Typically, 00:01:37 Purpling this late, late season like that, that can be a real bad yield robber in my mind. 75% of its needs are in the reproduction. 00:01:47 And let's be honest guys, you gotta remember something. We're building these plants. They don't need to be super sexy all the time, 00:01:55 especially in the vegetative stages because we're not selling vegetation, we're not selling biomass, we are selling grain, 00:02:02 and that phosphorus gets fed right into that. We're trading nutrients that we put on for pounds. We put into that. That ear 00:02:11 To me, from what I've seen, is a lot of other deficiencies. Mask can mask each other. 00:02:16 So we really rely on our sampling to tell us where we're at, because sometimes I get a tissue sample 00:02:21 and the plant looks gorgeous and green, but our phosphorus is low. And then we can have a great plant, 00:02:27 but our ears aren't filling like they want to. And that's phosphorus related as well. What you'll see in a corn crop, like you know, like mine 00:02:34 behind us, this corn is actually at 2,500 gdu right now. Still black. Green still doesn't show any deficiencies, so 00:02:44 that means that I've met all my requirements all the way through the season. That's a good thing about spoonfeeding. 00:02:50 We have these abilities to do that. That's why I spoonfeed phosphorus, 00:02:54.325 --> 00:02:55.525

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