Soil Sampling For Carryover Nitrogen

With this year’s drought there may be more fertilizer carryover in fields. SDSU Extension Soil Specialist Ron Gelderman says where yields have been reduced it’s more likely there will be unused nitrogen that will be available for crops in 2013. However, that may not be the case with other nutrients.

As a result he suggests soil testing this fall. And because of the variability of yield even within the field he says zone sampling is the best approach.

He says even where farmers are not using variable rate applications it will be necessary to divide the fields into sampling zones to get a representative sample.

Soil Sampling for Carryover Nitrogen