I have the card and I can see the Low and High marks, but I still get confused turning that into how many bags of urea, DAP and potash to buy. How do I make a practical fertiliser plan from the card?
4 Answers
Work through it in steps. First, find the recommendation table on your card for the crop you are sowing, it already gives a per acre or per hectare dose of nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium. Second, convert those nutrient amounts into fertiliser bags. As a rough guide, urea is the nitrogen source, DAP gives phosphorus plus some nitrogen, and MOP (muriate of potash) gives potassium. Your KVK or dealer can help you split the recommended N, P, K into the right number of bags, because DAP also adds nitrogen so you adjust the urea accordingly. Third, follow the timing. Phosphorus and potash and any micronutrient are usually applied as basal at sowing, while nitrogen (urea) is split into two or three top dressings through the crop, never all at once. Fourth, add whatever the card flagged as deficient, for example zinc sulphate or sulphur or boron, in the small quantities advised, and do not overdo micronutrients. Fifth, where organic carbon is low, mix in farmyard manure or compost as a base. Treat the card dose as your plan and confirm the exact bag split and timing with your local KVK for your variety and target yield. Do not apply more than the recommendation, extra fertiliser wastes money and can harm the crop.
The bag conversion is where everyone gets stuck. I took my card to the KVK and they wrote on the back, so many bags DAP at sowing, urea in two splits. Now I just follow that paper.
Important point, do not put all the urea at once. I split it and the crop colour stayed good through the season.
One more thing I learnt, apply the zinc or sulphur the card asked for as basal, do not leave it for later. Easy to forget once sowing starts.