Record-Keeping
Nutrients are like money, assets to be used wisely, and should be tracked to make best use of them. Use record-keeping booklets to keep daily records. It is analogous to keeping a checkbook register for farm nutrients. Or it can be thought of as a crop diary that has daily entries of what happened each day in the fields related to fertilizer, manure and harvest and could include pesticide applications, weather information, planter settings or anything else that might be useful to look back on in following seasons.
Of course it easier said than done. Spiral notebooks in trucks, tractors, and barns can be useful. Everyone on the farm needs to contribute and one person must be responsible to make sure it gets done each day before it is forgotten.
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Records
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Date
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Field
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Activity
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6/1/01
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Jacks
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Spread 21 loads manure, JD 250, incorp 8 hrs
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6/2/01
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Jacks
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Plant Corn, Starter 100 lbs/a. 10/20/10
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6/3/01
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Backlot
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Harvest balege 25 bales @ 1000 lbs
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Fertilizer records can be obtained from your bills.
Manure applications can be tracked with loads per field with load size identified such as a particular spreader or truck.
Likewise, yields can be tracked as loads per field or bales etc.. Yields are important. For example maybe you have been fertilizing for 25 ton/acre yield, but you are only getting 18. What is the limiting factor? Where are the extra nutrients going?
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