planting Milo in Missouri

[umrdyldo]

I planted a mixed seed food plot last year and had a decent amount of Milo come up and not much else.

I am going to try and plant about an acre in all Milo.

I need to know:

What type of fertilizer to use?
How much fertilizer to use? I know it depends on soil, just rough estimate
When to fertilize? before seeding, at seeding...
Seeding rate?

Thanks for all your help.

[Bowhunters]

Yeah, theres no way to tell you exactly what you need for a good (Nitrogen/Phosphorus/Potasium) mix on your soil for milo without having a soil test done.

All plants putting on growth need plenty of Nitrogen and Phosphorus.

Milo, corn, are plants that grow a large amount of green mass (stalk, large leaves, seed head or corn ears) they need a good amount of phosphorus as it aids in growth, so for milo you want a fertilizer that is high Nitrogen, high Phosphorus and low (but not zero) Potasium.

High Nitrogen aids in rapid plant growth and Phosphorus aids in creating a large plant and large seed head and at least a small amount of Potassium is needed for preventing plant disease and for aiding in fighting off drought.

About 2-3 lbs per acre of a high nitrogen/high Phosphorus fertilizer planted with the milo seed is about right if you get decent rainfall, if you live in a high moisture region and get heavy spring rains you can put on even more but you aren't going to harvest the crop with a combine so its really not needed and the expense doesn't make it worth while.

Farmers in high rainfall areas or that irrigate can put on as much as 20lbs per acre without fear of burning up their corn or milo because if they don't get enough rain they can irrigate any time they see water needed.

So any fertilizer you can find cheap with a (high Nitrogen/high Phosphorus/Low Potassium) ratio will probably work really well.

Some things to look at on your milo plants this summer -

If your milo plants leaves are a dark green in color you know they got plenty of nitrogen from the fertilizer, if they apear too light green or worse a yellowish tint they needed more nitrogen.

If the milo plant has purple areas on the stalks or leaves its a sign the soil is low in Phosphorus.

So that will tell you if you picked a good fertilizer mix or what to change the next year.

The local co-op or seed and feed in your area where farmers buy their seed grain can tell you what will work well and is cheap and for 1 acre you only need a few pounds of fertilizer.