Let $p$ be an odd prime. The primary purpose of this paper is to determine the excess of the conjugates of the Steenrod operations $\mrm{P}[k;f]$, which are defined as $\mrm{P}[k;f]:=\mrm{P}(p^{k-1}f)\cdot\mrm{P}(p^{k-2}f)\cdot\cdots\cdot\mrm{P}(pf)\cdot\mrm{P}(f)$. The result is then used to obtain sufficient conditions for an element in the polynomial algebra $\mathbb{F}_p[x_1,\dots,x_s]$ to be in the image under the standard action of the Steenrod algebra. Results and methods are generalizations of previous work by Judith Silverman and by myself with Judith Silverman.

AMS 2000 Mathematics subject classification: Primary 55S10. Secondary 55S05