Crop Nutrient Plans Have Benefits
Nutrient planning for 2021 is probably one of the first things farmers will tackle, as a lot of advisors want to get ahead of the curve, writes Todd Landsman at Aberdeen News. In the fall, nutrient planning focuses highly on two of the three major nutrients: phosphorus and potassium.
Our approach to nutrient planning depends on what kind of crop you’re removing. But, a big piece of what we do includes using spatial soil samples as one of the foundation pieces. The reason we believe starting with some type of a measure of what’s in the soil is because we understand, with all nutrients, what feeds the crop is a combination of soil-supplied nutrients.
Another piece of what we do is use yield files to actually capture the removals, and sometimes that’s last year’s yield file. It could be two years of yield removal if you’re on a two-year cycle. And for some people, literally, because we’re getting yield faster and faster, it can be this year’s yield file. Meaning, because we’re capturing yields every second, we’re able to calculate the phosphorus and potassium removal off that yield file.
We believe, from data analytics, that we’re able to define areas of the field that respond to more nutrients. We develop a different equation for each productivity area within a field. You don’t have to choose aggressive versus conservative for the whole field. You can treat parts of the field really aggressively and parts of the field really conservatively. Having more complex equations is a big part of what we do. In general, across the country, we tend to see recommendations that are a little bit “one size fits all.” What we’re able to prove is that the ideal combination of soil-supplied nutrients, which is what we measure through a soil test, and fertilizer, or manure-supplied, changes within field boundaries. It makes sense to us that some areas of the field just respond more to nutrients than other areas of the field, and we want to take advantage of that.
Continue reading at Aberdeen News.
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