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During drought or dry conditions, salinity and pH levels can change quickly in the soil. While the forecast shouldn’t entirely dictate how you manage your farm, understanding and performing the best farming practices when adding seed-placed nutrients can help save your yields when the rain fails to fall.
The salt effect
When the soil starves for moisture, the salinity of the soil increases. Heat and drought cause an increase in evaporation, pulling water out of the ground and pulling the salts to the surface. This can be seen by a white crust on the soil’s surface either in small areas a few feet in size (locally), or measuring a few acres in size (regionally).
These areas are lacking in seedbed moisture, and plants will struggle to capture water as the salt will draw the moisture away from the roots and impede the plants uptake. This can cause germination damage, wilted foliage, discolouration and stunted plant growth.
All seed-placed fertilizers, including Nitrogen (N), have salts, and will increase the salt concentration in the soil when soil moisture conditions are bad. When there’s no moisture for the seed to absorb, the fertilizer salts can cause seedling desiccating or ‘seed burn.’
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