More farmers are using 4R nutrient stewardship with nitrogen fertilizer application; however, there’s still work to be done on fine-tuning N rates and incentivizing change.
For more than 10 years, Fertilizer Canada and Stratus Ag Research have been asking farmers about their nitrogen management strategies and gauging the rate of adoption of 4R management — the right form, placement, timing, and rate of fertilizer.
Mike Weddel, president of Stratus Ag Research, says that having several years of data allows them to make some assessments of adoption rates, adding that younger and larger farms are most familiar with 4R practices for canola. Farmers, generally, are quite well versed at using the right form and placement of N, but determining the best N rate can be a challenge.
What Cassandra Cotton, vice president of policy and production with Fertilizer Canada, finds interesting in the data is that farmers who rate their awareness or implementation of 4R management as low are actually doing many of the things that make up a 4R plan, they just don’t call it that, she says.
This is where working with a certified crop advisor and having an actual 4R plan really helps, she says, as it brings together the pieces of fertilizer management farmers may already be doing, but adds a level of record keeping and verification to meet the overall objectives of 4R stewardship.
And while there are excellent reasons to adopt 4R stewardship of N fertilizer, at least for now, a carbon market or other trading opportunity simply doesn’t exist, Cotton adds, and that could be a hold back to verifying practices.
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