Keep Fertility and Stabilizers in Mind

We have had a very good stretch or fall weather but now it feels like winter is here. NH3 has been wrapped up for a few weeks now and we are still working on applying lime and fertilizer as the weather allows. I wanted to take a little time today to discuss spring fertilizer and stabilizing nitrogen. Although fertilizer pricing is at very high levels the strong commodity markets are still favoring trying to raise the best crop possible. It is important to fertilize to at least crop removal rates to avoid “mining” the soil and going backwards on our soil test values. In making our plans for spring fertilizer don’t forget to consider our micronutrients as well we have seen in past years that these are important to raising top yield and this is something that we need to keep in mind going forward in our programs. We had a very nice run of putting NH3 on this fall but there is still a fair amount to go this spring. As always corn uses most of the applied nitrogen from V7 through the R stages so making sure we have adequate nitrogen there in that time is critical. This starts with stabilizing our nitrogen. Whether we are using NH3, UAN, or Urea we have products to stabilize all three and we only get one chance to stabilize. With nitrogen costs being at or near all time highs it means more now than ever to protect what we are putting out on the fields.