7 Reasons Nutrient Management Starts in the Fall

The most robust soil nutrition is developed by robust soil biology. And the best time to establish that biology? The fall. Here are 7 reasons why nutrient management starts in the fall.

1. Biology needs time to build its populations and extract minerals.

Robust soil biology doesn’t happen overnight. Biology needs time to reproduce, and then it needs time to extract mineral nutrition from the soil. Applying biology when planting a crop in the spring is fine, but it gives the biology only a few weeks to establish itself before the crop makes serious nutrient demands on the soil. But biology applied in the fall has 6 months to build up its populations and nutrient reserves before the crop makes a demand on it.

2. Fall-established biology can deliver consistent nutrient release throughout an entire season

Alfalfa growers are accustomed to seeing their first cutting grow more vigorously than subsequent cuttings, which tend to show decreasing yields. The conventional wisdom is that the robust growth of the first cutting is due to moisture in the spring. This is partly true, but another cause is the flush of nutrients stockpiled by soil biology throughout the winter. Unfortunately, those nutrients get used up quickly, so the subsequent cuttings aren’t able to grow as strongly as the first.

However, in fields where our fall soil primer is applied, we have seen alfalfa crops that actually increase in yield with each subsequent cutting, showing that robust soil biology is able to provide consistent levels of nutrients to the crop throughout the growing season.

3. Humification happens in cold weather

There are 2 main types of microbial activity in the soil: mineralization and humification. Humification happens in cool weather when the soil is resting, and produces long-chain carbon molecules that provide sustenance to a growing crop all season long.

4. Biologically-extracted nutrients are not water soluble–they won’t leach out.

This is an especially useful trait in the spring, when wet conditions can flush soluble nutrients out of the soil.

5. Fall soil primer can be less expensive than a cover crop or fertilizers, and still deliver all of a crop’s nutrient requirements

We have one customer who calls our soil primer “cover crop in a jug.” He finds that it delivers all the benefits of a cover crop, and uses it liberally.

6. Fully-digested crop residues decrease chances of over-wintering disease and provide more nutrition to the following crop

Active soil biology can digest crop residue on the soil surface. If the crop residue disappears, so do the pathogens living on it, waiting to infect next year’s crop. In addition, all of that residue’s nutrition is added back into the soil, ready to feed next year’s crop

Fun fact: our product Rejuvenate was originally developed to digest crop residues. It is one of the three ingredients in our soil primer program, and continues to provide that residue-digesting punch.

7. Fruit buds develop in the fall, and carry their nutrition over into the spring.

In perennial crops, almost all of a flower’s energy comes from minerals stored over winter in the bud. The bud stockpiles nutrients when it develops in the fall. This means that next year’s fruit quality is directly determined by the nutrition available to the plant this fall.