Innundation

Well, out of every corner and crevice I've been told the "specialty" products are being offered, sold, given, presented and the promises of gold and silver are soon to follow. Let me preface the following remarks with this, any product out there, applied at the exact right time and place may give a yield response that may have you selling the stuff the very next day. And that is just fine. Some people seem to want that quick fix to all problems and issues that were "created" for example by unfavorable planting conditions, including planting DATE!
It seems there are quite a few "interns" running around taking tissue samples and reports being issued of various "problems" out there and I have heard we could be short of every nutrient known to make plants grow. Frankly I don't know how to begin to answer this. So I won't. What I will say is that plant nutrition is a very complex system that includes so many other variables along with fertility it really boggles the mind. The current weather conditions, meaning the hot and dry, before the little bit rain we had was very hard on crops especially sugar beets. Lets try to remember for example that a beet crop that went in basically a month later than normal, now has a root system that is expected to withstand the typical heat and lack of moisture we "normally" get at this time. Lets also remember that plants under stress will probably not respond to added nutrition until the stress is removed and may in fact be detrimental.
I"d like to remind you to you remember your basic agronomy when considering nutrient applications. Things like compaction/drainage issues especially when that leads to disease are not going to be corrected by nutrient applications per say. Remember how the corn looked in some of last years beet fields earlier this year especially compared to corn following beans? As the soils warmed and adequate moisture was received it began to look a lot better. It had to fight through some adverse conditions but now most of it looks reasonable considering late planting and less than ideal planting conditions. The chemical "fertility" is no different following beans than after beets... I wonder why, in a wet year in particular, why do we always have corn that looks like that after beets and not beans hmmmm....
I see it as my responsibility, as a consulting agronomist, to help you find the "cure" not apply the band aid. So, if the underlying problem is compaction, all the foliar 6-20-0 with all the minors at 1 gallon per acre is not, I think, really going to really help much. Lets do the math on that. 1 gallon = 10 lbs roughly. 10 x .06 = .6 lbs of N/ac, and 10 x .2 = 2#/ac half of which may hit tissue. Lets use common sense out there. If specific nutrient deficiencies are determined, then foliar feeds targeted to that nutrient will help in the right form at the right rate and proper time.