The A Better Way to Farm team has always aimed to give tips and updates to all our dear listeners with all things from Ag tech to farm equipment to cover crops because we only want what’s best for you and your farm. We will continue to work hard to bring core tips to build sustainable agriculture for each of our hardworking farmers out there.

 

We would appreciate it if you share us with a friend and your fellow farmers. Rate us in iTunes or other platforms you’re in so we could better spread the good stuff around. Thank you all so much for tuning in. The future of agriculture lies ahead of us!

 

Our 12-day series focuses on the 12 days of nutrients and we are so excited to share not only about macros and micros but are going to delve deep into agricultural science and what it can do to better our yields. You shouldn’t miss this series, so listen, learn, and apply! It’s the 5th day today and we are going to deal with all things related to Magnesium! Let’s go … 😉

 

[00:00:16] Rod: Happy holidays from us at A Better Way to Farm. Rod here, where we spend every day trying to help improve profits and increase yields for the grower. We know that everything that happens in Ag is good for somebody. Our goal is that it's good for you. Today is day five of our 12 days of nutrients. We're going to talk about magnesium. Before I even talk about what it is or what it does, let's talk about the one that it gets confused with, which is a micronutrient called manganese.

[00:00:42] We have the secondary nutrient called magnesium. We have the micronutrient called manganese and oftentimes they get confused. They are two very different things. The name micronutrient would imply that it takes less of it, and it does take more pounds of magnesium than it does manganese into the plant to get a crop to grow. As a matter of fact though, they're so similar even with their names, but in trying to determine if that's what the deficiency is visually looking at the crop. The thing to remember is this, they have very similar looking symptoms. The symptoms are, there is a yellowing between the veins in the leaf. 

[00:01:18] Now, here's how you tell it apart. If it's magnesium, it's a yellowing between the veins down low in the old growth. If it's manganese deficiency, it's a yellowing between the veins and the new growth. And so that's how we can distinguish visually between them. You know, I'm a big fan of taking in tissue tests and confirming what we think we're seeing. But that doesn't change the fact that was sometimes we got to respond very quickly and so we want to be able to take a look at that and say, I think it's this. And maybe take some corrective actions before it bothers us anymore. 

[00:01:52] So tonight, we're going to focus on magnesium. That's M-A-G-N-E-S-I-U-M and when we look at magnesium, what does it do? Well, number one is, it is a key component in chlorophyll production. And if we want that plant to be healthy, we want adequate chlorophyll production. It improves the utilization and the mobility of phosphorous. It is also, and I've been told this my entire career, it is just like a switch, no different than a light switch. And when you turn it on, it activates a lot of the enzyme systems in a plant. If you're growing grass here where I live, because we have high mag soils, we still fight grass tetany, which is a magnesium deficiency in cattle because the forage has not enough magnesium in it. And so that's one of the problems with magnesium, is the fact that even though you may have a lot in your dirt, you may not be getting it into the plant. It does increase the utilization of iron within the plant. And it has a very big influence on earliness and uniformity of maturity. If we want that crop to mature uniformly, then magnesium is our friend. It's something we want to make sure we have. We spent quite a bit of time working on this. 

[00:03:01] The only book I'm going to share anything out of tonight is Hands On Agronomy by Kinsey and it's a very short share. The rest of this is just going to be things that we've figured out, learned over the last 29 years here. There is a theory, the potassium gets around in water and finally it gets trapped in between the colloids. Perhaps that is why, when magnesium gets higher and higher, the soil gets tighter and tighter. Potassium availability goes down because as that potassium moves around and gets trapped in those colloids then the magnesium goes up and traps it harder. Whenever the magnesium gets higher, we see that soil be tight. 

[00:03:39] That's why, when I'm talking with you, I say, what is your base saturation rate? Because if your base saturation is above 18, we're probably looking at some tight soil and we need to be looking at what we can do. What are we going to do? If that's the deal, how are we going to loosen that up? Well, we might have to do some kind of a zone commander type of a thing where we cut a slot in, even if we're no till, and we're not going to work it up, we're not going to work it down fine. We're going to do that. But the fact of the matter is, this does work hand in hand guys with potassium. You guys know that Mulvaney believes, and I believe he has 100% correct. That when you put on potassium chloride, you create your own compaction and the tighter them clay particles trapped together, the less potassium you can extract out of the soil and the less that gets into your plant. 

[00:04:24] Too much magnesium will make that problem worse. And so therefore we'll have even a harder time getting potassium extracted out of the dirt. Probably the biggest thing that we've worked on is the ratios. You know, one of the ratios that everybody tends to talk about is that I guess it makes us sound intelligent if I can say what's your calcium to magnesium ratio. Because everybody's been saying that for like 40 years and yeah, it would be best if your calcium magnesium ratio was four parts calcium to one part magnesium, that would be ideal.

[00:04:55] It also would be best if your base saturation rate on magnesium was between 12 and 18. Again, not necessarily perfect is what gets us the results. Sometimes we farm around those. Frances Childs, when he grew as 442 bushel yield, had only a 50% base saturation rate on calcium and therefore his calcium magnesium ratio was not what we would say that it should be. And so again, we're going to work around that if that ratio isn't where it needs, and we need to maybe apply some foliar calcium, some calcium in the trench if the mag's too high. If the mag is too low, we definitely want to put some magnesium in the trench to help out. 

[00:05:32]But let me tell you the one that we have seen that makes a big, big, big difference. If you ever come to my house and we leave here and we go west, there's a great big hill here about a half mile west of us. And I can take you to the spot about a third of the way down the hill when the phone rang and Jerry called me and he gave me some description of what was going on in the field. And I said, Jerry, I'm not really sure, but I said, pull over and give me your soil test cause I knew we had a book on his day she was soil test. And I said, my prediction is, is that your potassium in parts per million is higher than your magnesium and therefore you have induced a magnesium deficiency. He pulled over and looked and absolutely that was correct. The magnesium was less than potassium in parts per million. He had a mag deficiency. Guys, here's the deal, magnesium and potassium compete for sites to get into the plant. It's just like two groups of kids fighting on the playground. If one's winning, one's losing, and that's the whole deal. And so it can be either way. 

[00:06:30] What happens is, if you get too much potassium and overwhelms the absorption sites, and magnesium gets left out. So what, it was too late. Jerry had already planted so he went in and he foliar fed and it made a tremendous difference. It's amazing. What, for $4 a pipe, for four bucks an acre you can get, if you'll just address that.

[00:06:50] Now, I've seen people who did it the other way and they've got way too much potassium. You know, we want ideal somewhere between three times and five times. We'd like to have three times as much magnesium as we have potassium. Okay. If we have three times the mag, that's good. We have five times, that's okay. I've seen it be 10 times. We have 10 times as much magnesium in parts per million, as we have in potassium. That creates a potassium deficiency. We need to know that in our soil test because it's very important that we put on a high case starter in that application. So there's, this is not an expensive fix, but it's something that needs to be done.

[00:07:31] We've got some really good friends out in Nebraska that are battling this high K. They've got really high K levels and pretty insufficient. They're not insufficient. Their mag is actually enough, except that it's overwhelmed and therefore they have to put on a little bit upfront to help get through that. To get it into the plant. 

[00:07:48] Guys, this is the kind of stuff that we spend a lot of time on at our Fundamentals of Agronomy training and the fact of the matter is these are the things that unlock the next yield potential for you. And that's what we're really looking for and all about. So we would invite you if you'd like to meet us in by Madison, Wisconsin on Thursday. We will be in Carney, Nebraska on Monday. And then we will be in Bettendorf, Iowa the following Thursday. We would love to talk to you. Give us a call, 6 4 1 9 1 9 1 2 0 6, send us a text or feel free to reach out on our Facebook page. If you find value in what we do, share it with a friend, let someone else get the information that you're getting. We would really appreciate that. I do hope you're having the merriest of Christmas season. And I hope you're having a better day.

 

Thank you for joining us on today’s episode. If you liked listening to this episode, follow us, tune in and share the good news of A Better Way to Farm Podcast ☺☺☺

      On Stitcher

      On Apple Podcasts

      On Spotify

      On Podbean

      On Listen Notes

      On Podbay

 

SUBSCRIBE to ensure you’ll never miss an episode! 😉

Meet A Better Way to Farm 💚

We’re a multi-generational family business based in Iowa working with farmers across the US. We take a hands-on approach using in depth soil testing, making recommendations down to ounces per acre of micro nutrients. 💰 💰 💰

Doing this helps our clients to become more profitable. If this is something your family would be open to, then let’s talk. ➡ ➡   ☎ ☎ ☎️  … or call/ text us at 6 4 1 9 1 9 1 2 0 6.

 

Power starts with knowledge. For more golden nuggets, follow us on Facebook.

Take a look at some profitability ideas HERE!

 

 

Happy listening! We’ll accompany you again at the next one! 😉