It’s been a challenging weather year for many farmers, but it could provide some very important data on nitrogen movement in the soil at 13 new N-Watch sites in the northeastern part of the state.
Justin Moritz, crop specialist with Heritage FS, says it was quite a year to start the management tool that measures plant-available nitrogen in the soil. “In June it was real difficult to take samples in standing water,” said Mortiz. “But we learned a lot and I look forward to continuing to work growers on programs like this.”
Around the area covered by Heritage FS, Moritz says they see a wide range of crop conditions heading into harvest. “Heritage FS has a cornucopia of scenarios,” he said. “We have spots that look really good and spots that look very trying…you can go in and out of great crops and into tough crops…a lot of weeds this year.”
He says they have also seen a lot of yellowing crops due to nitrogen loss. “You can really tell the guys that put late nitrogen on versus the ones who didn’t,” he said. “So we’ll have a lot to learn from this year.”
In this interview from Farm Progress Show, Moritz also explains how the N-Watch monitoring program works and what they can learn from it. [wpaudio url=”http://traffic.libsyn.com/zimmcomm/fps-gmk-nutrient.mp3″ text=”Interview with Justin Moritz, Heritage FS”]
2015 Farm Progress Show Photo Album
