C. T., Texas

I farm in Central Texas, dryland conditions and installed the dual banded 2x2x2 stainless steel fertilizer tubes on Case IH 1200 planter for first time last year and was very impressed.  Raised the best corn crop overall ever, had the most even corn and consistent yields across fields.  My neighbor even ask me what I had done this year and if I would do the same thing and plant his corn the following year.  In the past had operated with a pre-plant fertilizer application, 3-5 gallons pop-up fertilizer in furrow on the seed, and then a sidedress nitrogen & sulfur application.  This past year decided to cut out two trips across the field and cut out the pop-up fertilizer, ran all the fertilizer through the dual banded tubes for a total savings on fertilizer cuts and trips of about $50 per acre.  I applied 118 lbs of nitrogen with phosphorus, sulfur, and micros all through the planter and dual banded tubes; no preplant, no pop-up, and no sidedress.  Seed representative weigh wagon tested 148.8 bpa yields.  Early fertilizer placement close to the root zone is critical for plant energy and getting more nutrients into the plant.  Saving cost and raising better crops is a win-win situation for me and will be continuing to do this in the future along with more products from Schaffert Manufacturing.