Second Generation Growers Man Discovers Adequate Liming

Story by Steven Cuddeback, Skaneateles, NY

In the spring of 2010 I bought 500 tons of high calcium lime and decided to spread it on some rented land with a poor soil test.  I have a 10 ton lime-litter spreader and need to have the door all the way open, or the lime will bridge and not spread correctly.  And because of field conditions, I couldn't drive very fast, so, all that together, made the rate 4 tons an acre.  

We have an Aurora silt loam soil type, and this ground is always very hard.  The farmer before me didn't use very much fertilizer and the soil tests proved that.  One 3.6 acre field on that rented ground never gave any yield, ever!  Corn would yield 70-80 Bu/acre and soybeans went 15-20 Bu/acre.  

I had always been told by Growers district manager John Sensenig to do lime strips to see how much lime it would take to get the best results.  I had never taken time to do lime strips, so on this day I doubled the lime on this 3.6 acre field and put down 8 tons of lime.  

I  chisel plowed all the fields, followed by a disk and packer and planted corn using 6 gallons of Growers on the seed and 30 gallons of 30% N solution, split applied.  That is what I do for all the corn acres, and everything looked great all season long.  When I started to combine, most acres were yielding 170 Bu/acre. 

Then I entered the rented 3.6 acre field with the 8 tons per acre lime on it.  As I was driving along, the rotor distress light kept coming on, and, for it to go out, I would have to slow down.  I went around the field twice and on came the bin-full light.  The grain buggy man wanted to enter this field but I didn't have any room for us both, so I backed out of the field to dump. The corn was Dekalb 45-79 and the moisture was 18% in late October.  Our 500 Bu grain buggy was empty when I started this field and I filled it twice off the 3.6 acre field.  I may not have filled the buggy completely, but I must have taken a good 900 Bu off.  That would make the yield 250 Bu/acre for this field.  

I have been with Growers since the early 1970's, and I do not want to think about all the money I could have earned had I only followed the directions every Growers Rep I have met over the years has tried to give me about lime test strips.   I intend to wear out my lime spreader long before its time.  

Steve Cuddeback, second generation Growers customer from New York, has learned the value of calcium in his fields.