Y-Drop system places nitrogen close to the roots of the corn crop
An Ontario crop business is the first in Canada to adopt a unique system for late-season applications of nitrogen for corn and soybeans.
By using the GreenSeeker technology and the Y-Drop system, which is attached to a high-clearance sprayer, Good Crop Services Ltd. of New Hamburg is finding a way to apply fertilizer at the right time and in the right place.
“It’s the placement of the product that makes it far superior to what’s on the market,” says company owner Don Good of the Y-Drop system.
Developed in Iowa, the Y-Drop is a tool that can place any liquid product within two or three inches of a crop row. Good adopted the Y-Drop to complement the GreenSeeker for variable rate applications.
Dan Muff, CEO of Y-Drop LLC in Iowa, says the system can fertilize any row crop at various stages of the plant’s development. In corn, it can fertilize from knee-high to tassel. For soybeans, it can be used at V2, V3 or higher, up to R2 ½.
The system originated from research in sweet corn production when Muff and other researchers were seeking ways to increase sweet corn yields and studying fertilizer placement.
“We did some fertilization along the row and from that we’ve seen the results were huge, and we spent a lot of years studying agronomy knowledge and taking this agronomic knowledge to the field,” says Muff.
“The story is fertilizing a plant in its late production stages – before it sets its fruit – has a huge benefit, and that’s how Y-Drop developed.”
For more, see the article in the October 2012 edition of Top Crop Manager.
