Optimal N Rates for Dryland Forage Triticale.

Dryland farmers/ranchers in the CGPR have recently taken an interest in triticale as a hay crop. Triticale is well adapted and its forage is palatable and nutritionally competitive with other annual forages grown in the region. On deficient soils, triticale’s forage-yield response to applied fertilizer-N is impressive. Our objective here was to quantify the response of dryland triticale to applied N and to residual inorganic N. Winter triticale (cultivar NE422T) was planted into either wheat or millet stubble over three site years at the USDA-ARS Central Great Plains Research Station. In two experiments (2007-2009) just prior to planting, the crop was top-dressed with 0, 25, 50, 75 or 100 lbs of fertilizer N as urea or ammonium nitrate in a typical replicated randomized complete block design field experiment.  In an earlier (1995) experiment, using similar design and methods, winter triticale (NE422T) was fertilized at 0, 20, 40, 60, 80 and 120 lbs of fertilizer N per acre. Forage yield was harvested just as the awns were beginning to emerge from the boot.  A quadratic N response equation was fitted to the measured yield response and EONR tables were generated using the fitted N response equations.