Hopefully, you planted your winter triticale forage on time because planting date is critical to fall nitrogen uptake and its potential yield benefit.

Planted on time, triticale has been shown to take up and store more than 100 pounds of nitrogen. Our research in New York has shown that nitrogen and sulfur as a starter at planting will give a big yield boost next spring. If you are not planting on time — two weeks before the wheat date for your region — you will not get the nitrogen uptake.

I have been getting a lot of questions on using manure as the nitrogen source for fall or spring fertilization. We have done considerable research on this, and we have found many positives and many negatives to consider.

Here are four tips to maximize winter forage potential:

1. Don’t delay planting. Both my research and that of Penn State have found that you lose more yield than you save on fertilizer by delaying planting for manure application.

In New York, we have found that 60 pounds of starter nitrogen at planting, on time, gave the maximum benefit next spring. Surprisingly, the nitrogen efficiency was very high when we measured the uptake before the crop went into winter.

If the field had been buried in manure the previous spring and there was a less-than-normal crop removal (dry conditions anyone?), a significant portion of that nitrogen may carry over and meet the fall nitrogen needs.

Related:I’m learning to share, accept acts of kindness

2. Don’t spread manure over the top. You might get tempted to spread over the top of emerged triticale. This is a big mistake.

The crop will turn dark green and lush, but this is a disaster waiting in three forms. First, staying on the surface can lose most of the ammonia in the manure (where a majority of the readily available nitrogen resides) as it volatilizes directly into the air. Thus, you will be short on nitrogen and will have applied excess phosphorus and potassium.

Second, when the ground freezes and you get winter rain, this is the perfect scenario for moving your manure solids and liquid into the nearest waterway. Again, you are losing fertilizer. A 2% slope can move a lot of water. You lose key fertilizer money while polluting the neighborhood.

RESIST THE TEMPTATION: Manure spread over the top of triticale the previous fall was still entrained in spring on the forage at harvest. This is counterproductive to quality and can kill cows.

Third, and this is the worst problem: manure left over on the vegetation. On a field near my house, they spread on emerged triticale in November. I followed it all winter. The next spring, there was still solid, semi-solid manure entrained in the vegetation. Manure in the silo is not how you make high-quality forage.

One farm that did this had silage that was putrid smelling and full of maggots. The farmer’s nutritionist said not to go near the cows with it. He fed it anyway and killed two cows with hemorrhagic bowel syndrome. Not a good move.

Related:Harvest was terrible, and my mental health suffered

You may have gotten away with it before, but at some point, it is going to bite you very hard.

3. Consider injection. There is a role for manure on winter forage.

What we have found is that by injecting manure in early winter — when the soil temperature drops below 50 degrees F but the ground has not frozen yet — we were able to meet all the nitrogen and sulfur needs the next spring.

It unloads a tremendous amount of manure from storage before you go into winter. And it can be done in an environmentally sound way.

Injection allows volatile ammonia to attach to the soil. Our past replicated research has found that all the nitrogen is there in the spring. This is a huge positive savings for you.

An increasing number of farms are now injecting using an angled rolling coulter injector. A rolling coulter takes very little horsepower to pull, and it puts the manure 3 to 4 inches into the ground and covers it. The cover eliminates ammonia loss, odors and runoff.

CONSIDER INJECTION: Injecting manure, as seen on the left, when the soil is below 50 degrees F, but not frozen, will capture and hold the nutrients until the crop is ready to use in spring.

In our work, we applied 14,000 gallons an acre at 3 p.m. one day. The next morning at 9 a.m., the slot was dry as it soaked into silty clay soil.

Related:Don’t let guard down against avian flu

Injecting leaves nothing to be entrained in the silage next spring. Another positive: no smell. This means that you have captured all the ammonia to meet your winter forage fertilizer needs.

We have applied anywhere from 12,000 to 20,000 gallons of manure per acre to meet the nitrogen needs of the crop. You can empty a lot of storage at that rate in an environmentally sound manner.

The ammonia attaches to the soil exchange and remains there until the ground warms to 50 degrees in spring. Winter triticale grows at 40 degrees. As soon as the ammonia becomes available, it is taken up by the crop.

With the design of these rolling coulter injectors and the slower speed you need to apply enough at, stones are a minimal issue. The closing coulter leaves a smooth field for mowing. I do not suggest knife injectors as they pull up stones, take a lot more horsepower to pull through the field and leave a rough surface for the mower.

An added benefit is that you are injecting when nearly all fieldwork has stopped. This helps you to balance the workload on the farm. One more benefit of rolling coulters is that after the winter triticale forage is harvested, you can reinject more manure to meet the needs of the following no-till corn.

I suggest all farms with liquid manure add coulter injection to their spreader. We often paid for coulter injectors in one year of fertilizer savings.

4. Don’t be overly concerned about winterkill. Planting early with starter N to boost growth will not produce excess growth that winter-kills.

We clearly saw that in multiple, replicated planting date or nitrogen trials. What you must worry about under certain field conditions is snow mold, which can kill or seriously damage the crop.

Bigger plants (planted early or on time with fall nitrogen) are usually more successful at staying above the melt and growing out of the mold. Keep in mind that the long-term weather forecast is for winter to be warmer and moist.

In more northern areas it will snow, and snow is not a problem. When the snow melts on frozen ground and makes large puddles or ponds in low areas, this is when snow mold becomes an issue.

The spores travel in water and infect and kill the plant. This is exacerbated by continuous snow cover that uses up reserve carbohydrates in the plant, making it more susceptible to infection. It has very little to do with when you plant or how much nitrogen you put on.

For flat or pocketed fields that turn into small ponds during winter thaws, you can fertilize those areas by spraying with liquid sulfur and a spreader sticker in late November just before the snow. This fertilization method will stop the snow mold.