Most litter applications to other crops such as corn and tobacco are done in the spring. Putting it on those crop fields in the winter would result in too much loss of nitrogen. Wheat, on the other hand, is growing during that time frame and can use the nitrogen, Rasnake said. The best results with wheat has been using a combination of litter and commercial fertilizer with the litter applied in the fall and other fertilizer in the spring. Most of the research initially was on corn and on farms in western Kentucky with the focus on nitrogen use.
Litter is high in nitrogen and corn uses much of the nutrient.
Most of our farmers don't grow just one crop, so what they can do is use the litter on their corn so they can get the benefit of the nitrogen and get the build-up of the potash, phosphate and other nutrients in the soil for use by their soybean crop. So they can essentially fertilize two crops at one time that way. Forage crops need to also be watched for build up especially if grazing it, because they are recycling the nutrients, he said. Some work has also been done looking at litter use on tobacco as a possible replacement for at least some commercial fertilizer. Both yield and quality of the crop were reviewed with a particular eye toward chloride.