NH3 & dry soil

[Jeff_a_Caldwell]

Anybody having trouble getting anhydrous down in dry soils this fall? Saw a couple reports this week with some helpful information here. Anybody have experience with this they could share?

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[myxinmt]

We had very dry soil conditions this fall when seeding winter wheat in MT. I have a couple clients that mid-row band NH3 with their JD 1895 drills. It seemed that the deeper we tried to set the NH3 blade the bigger trench it left open. Finally settled on a 3 inch depth and 4 mph speed. We didn't have the luxury of waiting for rain as these guys had 35,000 acres to seed with 6 43' drills.  We took some side by side 0-6" samples 3-4 weeks after seeding and in some areas it appears that we may have lost 20 to 40 units of N. Have some more fields to sample and get analyzed for NO3 and NH4. When we get all of the samples analyzed I will post our findings. Bottom line, NH3 needs some moisture to convert to more stable forms in the soil.  Have a few other clients that like to fall band their NH3 with knives, but did not have adequate moisture to get it done. One even tried a coulter set up but could not get the slot covered well enough to have any confidence. 

[Ollie1983]

I've never understood why they use ammonia in other parts of the world. Ammonia is poisonous to soil life, and being a gas surely the inclination is for it to simply disappear into the atmosphere?

We would mostly use Ammonium nitrate or Urea over here, spread in prills or pellets, in two or three applications throughout the growing season, or possibly as a liquid suspension/solution. Requires rainfall to wash into the soil but at least we don't get such high levels of volatilsation.

P&K requirements can be applied in the autumn as manure or the spring along with the nitrogen requirement. 

[k-289]

Be interesting to see what the yields are next harvest---

[Jim Meade / Iowa City]

A lot of anydrous went on around here.  I didn't see any "smoking" and one applicator told me he was getting very good sealing.