# Foliar Fertilizers ?



## Small Farmer

Any one use Foliar Fertilizer for hay? I do about acre's of mostly bahia and the cost is a lots less, Any comments?


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## hog987

I have used some. Got to remember that it has its place. It is not a complete replacement for poor fertility. You have to get some that has enough fertilizer in the mix to do some good. Timing is everything with foliar. It can be part of a total program to help increase yields.

What were you looking at trying?


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## Small Farmer

Thanks for the reply

I have used the Grass Hopper brand for the last 3 years with no other fertilizer with what I thought was good results using the 30-8-10. This year I thought I needed to get something in the ground so I used chicken litter, but help a friend using the Grass hopper. I am looking at another brand at geneticseed.com


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## mlappin

Dad participated in a study with Purdue years ago on foliar feeding alfalfa. Came out that if your soil fertility was correct (ours was) the added expense of foliar plus the cost to apply it was a money losing proposition. However if you have trace mineral deficiencies in your soils it can help, but usually your greatest return was to add the trace minerals to your dry fertilizer program.

This was back in the late 70's or early 80's though, maybe some of the name brand, reputable foliars have been improved since then. If any foliar claims that by using their product your going to save a ton of money by eliminating the need to apply dry fertilizer I'd run the other way.


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## rajela

Tell me more about the grasshopper you was using? What kind of increase in production did you see?


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## swmnhay

I've said this before on here.I have a neighbor that was doing the foliar feeding of one of the so called premium foliar fertilizers.He did it for yrs and finally seen the light when he got to rent a farm where the guy kept the soil built up with dry fertilizer.At harvest he couldn't believe the difference in yields and his Yellow liquid tanks disappeared.Went to grid sampleing and dry spreding on everything then also.

I seen the soil test maps of his grid samples on the farms he had foliar fed for yrs they were run down to zilch.

I hate to guess how much this cost him over the yrs.Not only in his lost yield but now he is trying to build his soils back up with $600 a ton fertilizer when he could of been doing it with $200 a ton fert a few yrs ago.


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## hog987

Last summer with a foliar fertilizer sprayed on my second cut hay right after I got the bales removed from the first cut just about doubled my second cut yield. Now I must state that I do have a dry fertilizer program in the spring. Timing was everything. If I waited too long there would hardly be any difference. The fertilizer was a 10-45-10. The theory behind this is that after being cut the plant is very stressed. As soon as it gets some leaf to take in the fertilizer spray it. being high in P is what the plant need to get a jump start on getting those roots growing again.

I have attached a picture taken on the same round but I has to go around on spot in the field so the plant got no fertilizer. As can be seen there is a big difference between the 2 plants.

The way I see it foliar is only one part of a fertility program. If done right can really add to the hay produced. If done wrong can be a big waste of money. Also as time goes on the foliar fertilizers are getting cheaper.

One thing that can be done is to do a feed test on your hay and than you can see what was taken out of the soil for fertility. One can also do a tissue test durning the growing season to see what is short at that moment in time.

Now as I said I increased my second cut last year so this spring Iam going to be putting out a different program for my dry fertilizer, just because I pulled that many more nutrients out of the soil.


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## stack em up

My brother is an agronomist and we have had this discussion before. *IF *all the other conditions are right, meaning pH, NPK, moisture at the correct time, and a lot of luck, foliar feeding works. Other times, its just a waste of money. We added GreenSeeker to our sprayer for this year, and am anxious to try it on some alfalfa. Brother told me our fertility is spot on for great alfalfa, and foliar feeding at just the right time *SHOULD *help. We will see.

This actually sounds like a great HayTalk experiment. I think if I can get all the GreenSeeker stuff calibrated, I will conduct a "controlled" experiment. Half of a field will get dry fertilizer applied 4 times, just after each cutting. The other half will get same dry fertilizer, but will attempt foliar feeding with the GreenSeeker being the "operator" determining how much to be applied. Hay will be cut and baled in like conditions, and will weigh tonnage coming off of each parcel according to the grain elevator scale.

Now I suppose this means I should actually get out to the "shop" and look at the mess of electrical harnessing I have to install... Crap...


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## hog987

stack em up said:


> My brother is an agronomist and we have had this discussion before. *IF *all the other conditions are right, meaning pH, NPK, moisture at the correct time, and a lot of luck, foliar feeding works. Other times, its just a waste of money. We added GreenSeeker to our sprayer for this year, and am anxious to try it on some alfalfa. Brother told me our fertility is spot on for great alfalfa, and foliar feeding at just the right time *SHOULD *help. We will see.
> 
> This actually sounds like a great HayTalk experiment. I think if I can get all the GreenSeeker stuff calibrated, I will conduct a "controlled" experiment. Half of a field will get dry fertilizer applied 4 times, just after each cutting. The other half will get same dry fertilizer, but will attempt foliar feeding with the GreenSeeker being the "operator" determining how much to be applied. Hay will be cut and baled in like conditions, and will weigh tonnage coming off of each parcel according to the grain elevator scale.
> 
> Now I suppose this means I should actually get out to the "shop" and look at the mess of electrical harnessing I have to install... Crap...


One other thing for the experiment should also be feed tests. In my experiment last summer not only did I get more yield but the hay was able to keep its quality longer. By this I mean, the hay with the foliar was cut 2 weeks later than a joining field that was also cut and there was no real difference on the feed test results. Conventional wisdom says that the later and more mature the cutting the lower the quality, not so in my case.


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