Corn School: Measuring the impact of fertility and strip till timing

When it comes to strip tilling, is it better to plant corn into fall strips or spring strips?
Ben Rosser, corn lead at Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs, has been working on this question for a while now, and in this Corn School episode, Bernard Tobin catches up with him in the field to find out what he's learned.
#CornSchool #StripTillage #Fertility #Farming #Agronomy
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[@BigPtace]

Missing some information here. How deep the strip till vs the depth of the fertilizer applied?
Shank or coulter strip?

[@RealAgricultureMedia]

Ben Rosser says: Sorry, we could have included more background information. Trial was completed with a shank strip tiller (Kuhn Gladiator) with shank at 6” depth and fertilizer outlet at 4” depth. More details are available at fieldcropnews.com/2021/04/crop-advances-investigating-strip-till-p-k-fertility-placement-and-timing/

[@davec8421]

Low fertility soils.......and you're putting only 60 lbs of P down? (Thats well below crop removal for most corn growers). Why are we doing research with 170 bu targets??
Most farmers are dropping double that or more in the fall strip, and should be. Not going to growing 240 bu corn with 60 lbs of P and K.....
Its pretty tough to spring strip till 500 lbs down 5 inches on clays. Field conditions, smearing, salt issues etc.
The logistics alone of the retailer getting fertilizer to the strip till rigs in the spring makes it very difficult.
Should be comparing apples to apples another 12-13 lbs of N. Bet that 5 bu wouldnt show up then.

[@RealAgricultureMedia]

Ben Rosser says: These are valid comments… to test “what tillage and fertilizer timing/fertility placements may provide a general edge?” we wanted to test under responsive conditions (lower soil tests, moderate fertilizer rates) to understand the underlying basics of response in strip till systems. Responses to timing/placement likely change as soil tests or fertilizer rates increase - to provide better information, I’d like to expand these treatments to these scenarios, but given our resources and number of trials we could do, understanding the basics was our first step.
Spring vs fall comparisons were included for growers on lighter soils comfortable strip tilling either fall or spring. Some have mentioned they like logistics of fall strip till, but wanted to know if they were giving up yield compared to a spring strip and fertility program, as some have moved this way. I agree, I don’t think growers on soils they are not confident they can make good spring strips on should be strip tilling in the spring, and didn’t intend to imply this.
Between planter and strip tiller, all treatments received 30 lb-N/ac of starter N in the spring.

[@omarbaassiri8689]

@@RealAgricultureMedia tell Bob Rosser: low fertility soil has the advantage of low opportunity cost. Great for trials.
I split N into 3 applications if conventional fertilizer is used. Amonyum phosphate starter. Amonyum nitrate, week 4. Urea, week 7, mixed with very very small amounts of sea water. All soluble.