Crop Nutrition Products for Efficiency Spur Innovation from Soil to Foliar
April 1, 2026 Over the past two years, fertilizer decisions have been made much more difficult as crop nutrition prices have risen faster than commodity prices have been able to keep pace with.
“Growers today are really concerned about the price of crop inputs, especially fertilizer,” says Brian Waugh, Regional Sales Manager, Great Plains, at AgroLiquid. “Our goal with our line-up of liquid products is to help them not spend money where they don’t need to.”
Ross Bender, Director of New Product Development at The Mosaic Co. and a grower himself, agrees with this assessment, adding that this situation is what drives his company to offer the products it does to the marketplace.
“Margins at the grower level today are tighter than they’ve ever been,” says Bender. “At Mosaic, we are about delivering innovative ways to improve the efficiency of inputs on a farm.”
For evidence of this fact, Bender points to Mosaic’s MicroEssentials brand. As a single, uniform granule, MicroEssentials provide a blend of crop nutrients, including phosphorus, nitrogen, two forms of sulfur, and zinc. This has proven popular with customers, he says.
“Mosaic is a major supplier of phosphorus and potassium,” says Bender. “However, our company typically sells more MicroEssentials to the U.S. market each year than we do of monoammonium phosphate or diammonium phosphate.”
According to Ryan Sanders, Technical Sales Manager at ICL Growing Solutions, many retailers stock traditional sulfur and potassium sources. However, most potassium products are potassium chloride, which adds to the salt load. ICL’s Polysulphate offers potassium in sulfate form, and lowering chloride levels really makes a difference, he says. “If we replace or supplement other materials, we reduce the salt load from potassium chloride,” says Sanders. “We take chloride out of the system.”
A Phosphorus Focus
Among all the macronutrients, phosphorus seems to be the one most market watchers are concerned about for the 2026 growing season. Not only are supplies of this product tighter than normal because major country suppliers such as China have curtailed their production levels, but prices have spiked in recently. In fact, based upon statistics from a recent Purdue University survey, 29% of U.S. growers are considering reducing or skipping their phosphorus applications in 2026 due to higher-than-expected costs.
Not surprisingly, given these facts, several agricultural suppliers are looking for ways to improve phosphorus efficiency with their products. One of these is Phospholutions. According to Craig Dick, Vice President of Sales and Marketing, the company’s patented fertilizer technology, RhizoSorb, has been well received by ag retailers and their grower-customers.
“Last year, RhizoSorb was applied on 1 million acres of row crops or corn equivalent acres across the country,” says Dick.
Another company marketing an aid for phosphorus is Huma. According to Fred Nichols, Chief Sales and Marketing Officer, the company’s Super Phos features micro carbon technology and a lower overall cost for customers to use.
“Super Phos is 12 to 29 cents lower per unit to use vs. competitive formulations,” says Nichols. “If a grower uses five gallons with 10-34-0 fertilizer, Super Phos can achieve the same results at only two quarts.”
At the 2026 Commodity Classic, Ostara introduced its new phosphate fertilizer aid, called CG P2X. According to Tom Snipes, CEO, the problem is that many phosphate fertilizers are water soluble.
“P2X is water insoluble,” says Snipes. “So, the only way it releases is in the presence of the root activity.”
Finally, Mosaic teased a new product it is preparing to launch into the market in fall 2026 called Renuvis Enzara. This is an enzyme-based technology that can be used to manage field residue.
“Farmers are continuing to grow a lot of corn and have made a continued push toward sustainability, improved soil health, and no-till practices,” says Mosaic’s Bender. “Renuvis Enzara can be applied in a tank mix during the spring or fall foliar applications. It only works on dead tissue and helps bacteria get into the residue so it can be broken down at a quicker rate.”
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