Band vs Broadcast Fertilization?
 

This is for a 10 acre dove field.

A few months ago I bought an old 2 row planter, to plant sunflowers, milo, corn, etc in the field. I had been broadcasting the fertilizer and seed, then disking it all up in the previous years, but I had mostly pigweed that came up.

This year I am going to apply a preplant herbicide to control the pigweed, and plant the sunflowers in 30" rows.

The row planter is missing the fertilizer boxes, but it has the mounting brackets, sprockets and other hardware.

I did a little research, and band fertilization is good when soil is relatively cooler. Since the roots are growing slower the nutrients are right there. I have to plant some time in April in order for the plants to be ready by Sept 1. When I planted in early May, the sunflowers were still green and not mature when dove season started.


Questions:

Will band fertilization be that much of significant benefit for a dove field as opposed to broadcast fertilization?

Any ideas on how to fabricate something to apply the fertilizer in bands? I thought about a couple of short piece of 4" or 6" pvc mounted on the frame with a small funnel on one end of each, and then running 2 plastic tubes from the funnels to where the furrows are. basically something that would look and function like a gigantic hourglass that's been cut at the narrow portion and has the plastic tube where it's been cut in half.

Any other tips or advice you can give me would be appreciated.

RE: Band vs Broadcast Fertilization?
 

That would be a great question for one of the tractor forums called "implement alley" ....

Implement Alley

RE: Band vs Broadcast Fertilization?
 

I'll post it on that forum. That forum is also where I got the idea. Someone had rigged up a gravity fed band fertilizing thing to their 2 row planter and it worked for them.

RE: Band vs Broadcast Fertilization?
 

Banding it in is best if you can - but don't get too worried about it if you cannot.

For a band to be best used - it should be set 1-2" to the side of the seed band and 1-2" down in the soil. A localized band can allow you to use 1/2 the fertilizer you would use if broadcast - and its available to the seeds planted only - for the most part - at germination.

If you cannot band in the Nitrogen - You might want to plant it with none - or little fertilizer - then broadcast Urea or another nitrogen based fertilizer once the sunflowers are near knee high. This way - the sunflowers are best able to use the N put down - and can outcompete any "volunteer" wild weed seedlings that will have emerged. Little Nutrients are needed for germination - anf almost all soils will contain enough residual N-P-K for good germination. If you broadcast at seeding - all seeds start off with the same benefit - and weeds like ragweed, pigweed, foxtail, and others WILL outcompete sunflowers for the N.

Manual cultivation - with a two row - 3-point hitch cultivator - will help alot too. If you an cultivate - Cultivate the last time when the plants are knee high about - then broadcast 50-100 lbs/acre of N - and you will have a GREAT sunflower plot on most soils.