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Comparison of pasture fertilization strategies

 

Project Details

  • Project Lead: Manitoba Beef & Forage Initiatives

  • Collaborators: Harvey Dann (Alert-Agri), John Heard (Manitoba Agriculture)

  • Years: 2019-2022

  • Project Status: Complete

  • Funding & In-Kind Support: Canadian Agricultural Partnership, Heritage Co-op

  • Location: First Street Pasture

  • Scope: Demonstration

  • Keywords: Fertility Management, Forage Rejuvenation

Approach

Investigate two fertilization strategies for differences in pasture forage yield and composition, differences in forage quality, differences in residual effects on the soil, and differences in cost of practice.

Key Findings

Forage yield and composition:

  • Applying conventional fertilizer increased abundance of leafy spurge

  • Pedogenesis fertilizer did not impact abundance of leafy spurge

  • Neither fertilizer impacted overall yield

Forage quality:

  • Fertilizer did not impact crude protein, total digestible nutrients, or fibre.

  • Fertilizer did not impact calcium, phosphorus, magnesium, potassium, or sodium.

Foliar cover and yield across fertilizer treatments.

Residual effects on soil:

  • The Pedogenesis fertilizer impacted base saturation cation ratios but did not raise or lower any one cation to the ideal reading.

  • There is very little difference in soil organic matter, nitrate, phosphorus, calcium, magnesium, potassium, boron, copper, or zinc between treatments.

  • The Pedogenesis treatment showed increases in sulfur, manganese, sodium, and iron compared to the control and conventional fertilizer treatments.

Cost of practice: The Pedogenesis product has a higher per acre cost than a conventional fertilizer.

Long term effects: No long term effects were found in 2022 for forage yield, forage quality, or residual effect on soil.

Base cation saturation ratio of calcium (top left), magnesium (top right), potassium (bottom left), and sodium (bottom right). Idea Readings are provided by Pedogenesis.

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