Best Foliar Fertilizer For Cotton

Low volume not pivots.

Best foliar fertilizer for cotton. Recent work in central and gulf coast areas of texas has demonstrated the importance of cotton k nutrition spiegelhauer et al 2014. Those plants will not take up foliar fertilizer until they get some oxygen and start recovering. Jennifer and i have been getting questions about foliar feeding cotton. Don t feed when.

Mulvaney is a uf ifas cropping system specialist and glen harris is a uga soil specialist. Preplant applications of k fertilizer and in some cases mid season foliar applications are effective in correcting deficiencies. Foliar feeding general guidelines. And if the soil is saturated cotton will need to recover somewhat before it can effectively take up foliar applications.

Petiole testing is the best way to tell whether you need to foliar feed cotton. Currently there are a number of commercially available fertilizer additives that are designed to improve the uptake efficiency of p and k fertilizers. With foliar feeding you either love it or hate it. In most situations the best strategy to avoid k deficiency is to 1 soil test 2 apply the recommended k fertilizer at planting and 3 consider foliar feeding k during peak bloom.

Supplement to a good soil applied program. Can i apply foliar fertilizer by pivot. Not all nutrients feed well. I have received questions about a lot of different foliar fertilizers.

Response to foliar k is unlikely if soil test k is adequate or greater than 125 ppm k. In areas where you think the cotton is not severely stunted you may want to apply some foliar fertilizer to replace some leaching and de nitrification losses. Below are some general guidelines and rules of thumb to follow as you use foliar fertilizer to help you finish the season. The amount of water applied by pivot essentially washes the fertilizer off the leaves making this essentially a soil applied fertilizer.

A valuable feature of petiole testing programs is that weekly sampling tracks nutrient level trends and allows the detection of deficiencies or excesses up to two weeks in advance. Effect of method and time of potassium application on cotton lint yield better crops vol.