The mission of Better Harvest, Inc., is the gathering of data to assist in the efficient use of nitrogen fertilizers for the best economic yields while having a positive effect on the conservation of our soils and the environment.
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All the charts and figures below are from data collected since 1998 from corn fields in the nitrogen management program. These charts and figures are taken from a subset of the data that only includes fields with yields over 170 bu/ac but excludes fields that had compost or manure that crop year. This subset of data gives a good look at nitrogen management while excluding low yield fields and those with "extra" nitrogen.
With fertilizer prices at all levels, the lowest pre plant N amount has the cheapest total cost of N for the corn crop. The 75% level is calculated on $304/ton NH3 and $158/ton UAN with application charges of $7/ac for NH3 and $10/ton for UAN. (Click here for a brief look at how NH3 and UAN are made.)
The cost savings are real. Application charges in this chart are $7/ac for NH3 application and $10/ton for UAN application.
It is a little busy, but so is farming. Post pollination nitrogen application is the only statistically significant nitrogen application that correlates to yield. This is true over all fields and those with the low pre plant nitrogen amounts. From the chart above, notice that the trendlines cross at 38#/ac of nitrogen. At the 70 #/ac rate of post pollination nitrogen, the lower pre plant amount fields yielded 3 bu/ac more. Other observations from our data include a statistically significant cost savings from not applying more than 50 #/ac of nitrogen with a herbicide carrier. A larger application than this tends to drive nitrate levels very high in the young corn plant. The plant cannot utilize all the nitrogen at once and in effect results in "wasted" nitrogen as more has to be applied at a later date. We have also seen the same from pre pollination applications of UAN over 80 #/ac of nitrogen. The most cost effective application combination in this case is a side dress application followed by UAN post pollination. We have some fields with adequate soil nitrogen that use no pre plant nitrogen, a small amount of herbicide carrier, and then UAN both pre and post pollination. These fields do not require over 80 #/ac of nitrogen pre pollination, so UAN is the most cost effective solution. The key is monitoring the crop and managing the nitrogen. Better Harvest specializes in just that. |
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