Fertilizer - Things to Consider in the Fall

by

Garth donald headshot thumb

By Garth Donald, CCA, DynAgraVRT

Now that harvest is complete, growers need to start to shift their thoughts to fertilizer. There is a lot to consider with fertilizer in the fall.  Whether it is pre-buying or fall applying the decision is very important. With most growers going to no-till, the practice of fall fertilizing has seen a major reduction but the questions still get asked. One of the big reasons people look to fall fertilizing is to reduce the spring work load. As we are striving for greater yields we are putting on more and more product. Applying more product can create logistical challenges of how to get more acres seeded in spring while also applying 300 lbs of product? Fall fertilizing does help to spread out the work load by getting a large amount of the product on in a less stressful time frame.

In some areas the reason that growers are fall fertilizing is because of product availability. Once the product is applied you have it and are not worried about industry shortages or plant failures.

The next thing with fall fertilizing is the changes in the nitrogen products. Now a lot of people ask me what has changed. Well all of the main changes is in Urea nitrogen. There are products that have come out that are slowing the release of the nitrogen or stabilizing the nitrogen so that it makes the product less able to leach or denitrify. Leaching or denitrification has been the main reasons why growers have gone away from applying fall fertilizer. With these new products it takes the stress away of worrying that you will loss the product you are putting on.

Agrotain is a nitrogen stabilizing product that slows down the conversion of urea to ammonia thus reducing volatilization do to surface applications of urea. Agrotain Plus has the additional ability of inhibiting the conversion of ammonium to nitrate which reduces losses of urea to leaching and denitrification. These products can be applied by the retailer at time of pickup so that the product is ready to go when you are giving you 7 to 21 days of control.

The next product available to growers is ESN from Agrium. ESN is a controlled release product that has a polymer coating applied to urea. This coating is a permeable polymer which allows the soil water to come in and dissolved the urea granule. Then once the urea is in solution it is slowly released through the polymer membrane to provide the crop with timely nitrogen. One of the features with this product is if there is not enough moisture to keep the urea in solution the urea will return to its solid form and will wait in the coating until there is enough moisture to go into solution again.

The last product I will talk about is not yet registered in Canada but is in the regulatory process is called Nutrisphere-N. This product is similar to Agrotain in that it is a urease inhibitor as well as it can reduce losses due to leaching and denitrification. The main difference is that it will last all season long. It can be applied at your retail when you pick up your product.

There are lots of options to make fall fertilizing successful for your operation but remember these products are tools and have to be used properly to make them work the best for you.

Those are my thoughts,

Garth Donald C.C.A.

Wake up with RealAgriculture

Subscribe to our daily newsletters to keep you up-to-date with our latest coverage every morning.

Wake up with RealAgriculture

Categories: Agronomy / Fertility

Please register to read and comment.

 

Register for a RealAgriculture account to manage your Shortcut menu instead of the default.

Register