Yield bump when treating nitrogen
Farmers don’t tend to throw good money after bad, and that’s why nitrogen loss is a continual concern and can lead to use of nitrogen stabilizing products. Those concerns have been backed up by many university studies that highlight three ways that substantial amounts of nitrogen fertilizer can be lost.
“Either through leeching, denitrification, or volatilization, upwards of 50 percent or more of the nitrogen can be lost through the growing season,” says Tim Book with SFP. “That’s just too big of an investment to put out there and not have insurances that that nitrogen is going to be there when the crop needs it.”
He says you can see evidence right now of nitrogen deficiencies across the Corn Belt.
“This time of year when you’re seeing corn fields and they’re firing, they’re turning yellow from the bottom up, 9 times out of 10 that’s because of nitrogen loss, and when you have as much rain as we had in 2013 early in the season, often times if that nitrogen isn’t stabilized it moves through the soil profile and it’s gone. It’s not available to that crop and it’s going to cost them bushels.”
NutriSphere-N from SFP is a nitrogen stabilizer, and Book says University of Missouri research proves its benefit to farmers.
“Basically it’s going to help that producer. When he spends his hard earned money on fertilizer it’s going to keep that nitrogen in the ammonium form longer so that corn plant can take it up and you can get bigger, deeper kernel set. Ultimately it’s going to be more bushels. Our data over the last 4-5 years is showing about a 13 bushel yield increase when Nutrisphere is either added to UAN solutions or urea.”
He says with Nutrisphere-N you can apply this fall, in the spring, and in-crop from knee high to waist high corn.
Book adds, “We’ve actually had some guys in Illinois this year fly urea on that was treated with Nutrisphere-N, and based on the color of the crop, very green, very lush still, so we’re expecting big yield increases in those situations.”
Book also talks about SFP’s AVAIL Phosphorus Fertilizer Enhancer and the first year benefits it offers producers in the HAT interview:Tim Book-SFP