The Spreader applying fertilizer.

Spin Spreading – In the spring of 2009, Premium Ag started offering fertilizer spin-spreading primarily for their agronomy clients.  The New Leader box is high capacity (~10MT of urea total), has 3 compartments, and is Variable Rate capable.  For good quality fertilizer, the machine can spread a 70 foot width very accurately and high speeds, so the machine is highly productive.  The demand for this service was driven from clients who wanted to make seeding more efficient by spreading a high volume of mobile nutrients mainly (nitrogen and sulphur) in front of their seeding operation.  Time is definitely sensitive at this time of year, but if the application is done in-front of the seeder in a timely fashion, nutrient losses are minimal, especially if agronomic factors are considered.  Growers can seed significantly more acres in a day and most years, that pays huge returns.  The other portion of acres that the machine applies on is in the perennial crop area with hay and pasture.  We have successfully spread elemental sulphur, high quality and off-spec product. A pound of nutrition will most always be best placed in the soil, but when sound agronomy can support our custom applications, we can still be quite efficient with our nutritional investments.

Veris Electrical Conductivity Readings – Soils hold more and less water and nutrient based on soil texture.  The higher the EC, the more water and nutrient the soil can hold in theory, so we are able to segregate zones of production based on some very simple and highly important agronomic factors.  Salt in soil conducts electricity very well and typically in those zones, fertility has been applied for years and years that far out-perform realistic yield goals, so quite often we don’t have to fertilize and in some cases, seeding salt tolerant grass is better off than trying to grow a crop.   

The Veris Soil Conductivity Machine at work.

Veris PH Detection- This is a new service offered in the Spring of 2013.  pH in a field can be highly variable by 100X or more.  Remediation can be quite costly in our geography and lack of a lime source.  Putting down proper rates on every acre can be very cost effective as compared to spreading the whole field with a blanket application.

Seed Treating (Canola)- In a very short growing season and early season stress, giving canola seed a little extra jump after seeding can be quite valuable. There are lots of ‘priming’ products on the market to choose from.  We DO NOT sell or promote any specific product.  We provide the service of using your product of choice to coat the seed.