I've been using Winter Rye mostly for weed control, living roots, and biomass mulch after flattening it once corn/beans emerge, but it's a potassium converter/scavenger too.

Excellent overview and discussion of avoiding yield drag! Well said my friend! 🌱✅

Great content as always. The latest where I'm at. First get a soil test lab you are confident in. It seems there are a few different ways to calculate potassium and CEC. I'm on Midwest labs with their nuetral ammonium accetate. Some labs just do Melich 3 extraction which for us was not good as our soils >30 CEC, particularily bad with P. Next since my soil was a 60bpa corn ground when I took it over, it needed a LOT of buildup. I'm coming to the conclusion if you want to build up your yields, you need a ratio between what the entire crop removes (leaves and grain) and the K levels in your soil. Again high CEC, so results will differ. Same goes for P. So the question I'm working on is that ratio 1:1, 3:1, 5:1 etc. It will probably drive the PHd types who like to cast wide blankets and shame farmers, but I don't see any choice locally but to find the results by brute force. So this year I have 3 corners to look at- Corner 1 High K/High P, Corner 2 High K/Low P, Low K/High P. For my soil I just got to 2.5% K as a part of CEC and consider that high (it was 1.2% when it was delivering 60bpa). It takes 1,000# 0-0-60 to add 1.5% to my %K so we're doing this carefully. Good luck up there. If you have an email I'd send you the study as it develops. Plannng on a 5 year study so the outlier global warming years can be addressed.

I have low CEC and I have been putting down a lot of lime and K

A few guys here bale straw off to sell. In my opinion they're just giving potassium away which I will happily buy from them.

We Are Hay Producers mostly Hybrid Costal Bermuda.which is a heavy user of potassium We apply 1/2 in the spring nd 1/2 in Sept just before it goes dormant.... Our soil is sandy loam heavy on the samdy side.... The bright side is The grass loves Sandy land...

If you want to get a quick idea this year of shortages/surplus for your weather conditions, take a ear leaf corn tissue test at DENT. Then compare that to yield monitor results. This is when the max potassium is in for the season and it has set the yield. If you get dry after silking, that K really holds the plant.

Richard mulvaney talks about at the end of his talks the key to increasing ao soybean yields is on ton of lime every year and dont look at your ph. To me I get out of comments like that a person really has to look at avaliable calcium with sap analysis. I also think that some of john kempfs studies were done on organics farms with heavy manure applications. I think that he is just releasing huge tie ups in the soil.(which is awsome and a huge money saver) it all has to be taken into context thats the main thing and total mineral analysis can be very beneficial. I always think start small and figure out what you're actually looking at. I have been applying 100lbs of potassium sulfate before corn and have liked the results. Im going to trying with soybeans this year and see how it goes and bump up the corn potassium.(im at or under 1 to 1.5% potassium avaliable in the soil)

Red River valley, just north of the boarder. Haven't put potassium down in a half century. Side by side, with and without we see no yeild difference. Soil always tests high.

Zero potash works well...until it doesn't. You know my opinion on potash. It's important. After 15 years of 125% of crop removal my soil test levels are finally out of the responsive zone (sub 120ppm) and most are now 150-200ppm. As yields go up demand goes up. K and Mg are tied together and on many of my high cal, low mg soils we need to band kmag to make potash more available. No easy answer but I'm cutting N dollars way before I cut K dollars on my farm.

Cant say I have any trials. I have always included potash in my 2x2 band. Phos, not so much. I would love to try potassium sulfate but too expensive for me and hard to get ahold of. I think the happy medium for me and what I am going to try is kmag in the band and foliar some as well. That is my plan to get away from kcl and still get some potassium out there.

Working on improving the ph first helps other things as well. The longer we get away from livestock presents more challenges too. Are you working with Joe alts on your fertility? Wondering how big of an area he covers? Thank Jon.

Very interesting topic. When you say low CEC soils, how low are you talking?

Whats your thoughts about the fact that cows pull the calcium and p and leave a lot of k out the back end. And the thoughts that plants that cant find calcium will latch on to k instead.

We had to do without P back home. Government regulations you know..

What products do you use for foliar potassium on corn and beans, please?

what have you tried for potassium in a foliar ?

Has anyone tried food waste from a restaurant, grocery store or food wholesaler?

All I heard was Mulvaney, made me thirsty for a non gay beer🤣

When you are not applying P or K to a field? How do you make the argument that you are not nutrient mining? That's what I hear from other people is you need to apply or you are nutrient mining.