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Welcome to University of Minnesota Extension's Nutrient Management Podcast. Each month we bring you the latest research in nutrient management for crops and how you can incorporate the latest tips and best management practices to your farm.
University of Minnesota Nutrient Management Podcast Episode: “Fall fertilizer outlook”
August 2023
Written transcripts are generated using a combination of speech recognition software and human transcribers, and may contain errors. Please check the corresponding audio before referencing content in print.
(music)
Jack Wilcox:
Welcome back to the University of Minnesota Extension's Nutrient Management Podcast. I'm your host, Jack Wilcox, communications generalist here at U of M Extension. In this episode, we're talking about the fall fertilizer outlook for 2023, and we have three panelists here with us today. Can you each give us a quick introduction?
Daniel Kaiser:
This is Daniel Kaiser. I'm a nutrient management specialist with the University of Minnesota Extension located out of the St. Paul campus.
Jeff Strock:
This is Jeff Strock, a soil scientist with the University of Minnesota located at the Southwest Research and Outreach Center near Lamberton.
Brad Carlson:
Brad Carlson, Extension educator, work out of the regional office in Mankato and kind of work statewide.
Jack Wilcox:
The first question: what are growing conditions looking like around the state?
Jeff Strock:
Well, I'll take a quick stab for Southwest Minnesota, Jack. Things have not been looking really, really very good, especially for the corn. We've got a lot of uneven corn out here, some of it related to the big heavy rains that we had had during the week in May that we had a lot of replant going on, so some of that corn was behind, but since that time in early May, we basically had almost no precipitation whatsoever until this past weekend. Around then, we got about an inch and a quarter of rain, which probably isn't really going to help the corn a whole, whole lot at this point, certainly going to be beneficial and advantageous for the soybeans.
There's fields of corn that have started to turn a little bit yellow, probably a bit of nitrogen deficiency because they're just not able to get down to get that nitrogen and certainly suffering from the drought conditions themselves. We've seen quite a bit of firing in some of those corn fields as well. Some of the ones I've seen and been in around Southwest Minnesota, especially on some of the lighter ground, have fired up quite high on the plant. Some of them are still low, probably a foot or two off the ground, but some of them are three or four feet up off the ground. We're going to have some challenges with the corn, and, again, fortunately for the soybeans... The plants have been a little bit shorter than what I'm used to seeing around here, and so that might affect yield at the end of the season, but this rain that we got, they're looking pretty good.
Brad Carlson:
Yeah. I guess coming from my part of the state, we're actually probably the most fortunate ones almost anywhere because we had... At least my wife claims we had close to four inches on this last rain, we had about two inches about two weeks ago, and then going back to around the 4th of July there was a two-day stretch where we had close to four inches there also. Obviously it's been extraordinarily dry in between those, but overall we don't see the kind of moisture stress that you see in a lot of other parts of the state. A lot of these heavier glacial soils hold water pretty well. Obviously when you go that long in between rainfalls, the sandy spots start to fire real bad. I have not had the opportunity to travel down towards Rochester and farther east. I understand that it's extremely dry right in the Rochester area. I've been down towards Austin and Albert Lea.
I guess the one thing for sure is that the rain that we have had has been very spotty. You can drive three or four miles and it looks terrible, and another three or four miles and it doesn't look so bad again. That's pretty characteristic of these convective thunderstorms this time of year, but overall I would say our area is looking relatively decent. I know we had Farmfest last week, and of course I drove in from the east and I didn't think things looked bad and people that were driving in from all other directions, south, north, and west, were all saying, "I've never seen the crops look so bad." That certainly wasn't my experience, but... We know that there's winners and losers in the state right now.
Daniel Kaiser:
Yeah, and kind my limited... I mean, the only spot I haven't really been to has been to the west central part of the state, kind of that Willmar, Morris area to kind of see what things are out there. I know it's been fairly dry, particularly around Morris just from some of what we've been harvesting for our alfalfa. We just haven't been seeing the height out of some of the alfalfa. Southeast, I mean, I can echo a lot of the stuff that Brad said, doesn't look too bad when you're driving along the road except for some of those spots. You can definitely see a lot what Jeff was talking about, a lot of those lighter spots, sands and that are really starting to fire in particularly the fields that aren't irrigated. One of the... This year to me has been just an absolutely goofy year with these rainfall patterns we've had because it seems like everything's getting dumped on Brad and then kind of the rest of us... I've seen it in my place, you watch these storms develop over you and it dumps rain over in Wisconsin and it just sucks the life out of everything in the areas kind of around where we're at.
Brad Carlson:
Yeah. I know I was talking to somebody that was from kind of north of where you live, Dan, on kind of that East Central Minnesota area, that Pine City area, and he said it was a disaster, that they probably weren't going to get a crop at all, and I know looking at the drought maps, there's been some really bad spots in that part of the state also. Another one of the things that I was hearing, the input I was getting from the farmers that I had conversations with at Farmfest is... There's been a lot of discussion about the fact that a lot of our corn hybrids have been very resilient to drought to with respect to... I think we all know if you went back 15, 20, 30 years ago, the crop would be all curled up and shriveled up at this point, and really we've not seen that.
I think there's really been a lot of advancement in corn genetics for drought tolerance, and so the drought symptoms that some of us that are a little older or experienced for most of our lives, we're not quite seeing that. However, one of the things that was a point of conversation in the Extension tent was because of the lack of rain, actually that corn was showing nitrogen deficiency symptoms. I guess it's worth noting that the majority of that nitrogen is pretty well into the nitrate form right now and the nitrate pickup happens when water's picked up, and so if the plant's not getting water, it's not getting nitrogen or particularly if the only water it's getting is very deep where there isn't much nitrogen, you may see some nitrogen deficiency, but it's probably mostly related to the drought stress.
Jeff Strock:
I'll echo that, actually, Brad. We've got some trials around here that we regularly look at soil moisture down to about 40 inches and the profile has been just absolutely parched dry in the top eight inches, and we've seen down close to 30 inches now where that moisture had just been sucked right out by the plant. We've got really, really pretty dry conditions down to almost 40 inches now and the nitrogen that was there was probably taken up long ago that helped get that crop going and get that ear forming and things like that. Now it's just essentially kind of consuming itself, trying to get some yield on that ear.
Jack Wilcox:
What's the current status of fertilizer prices and availability in Minnesota?
Brad Carlson:
Well, I talked to one of my industry contacts just before we did the podcast to see where we're at with things and he said that they're currently booking fall anhydrous at about $600 a ton. That price is down quite a lot from where things have been at now the last several years, and he said the other thing that was interesting is he said they were booking spring urea for $498 a ton, which there's two things about that. One is I think we know that recent years when there's been a lot of volatility in prices and issues with fertilizer transportation, especially this far north, that they were not willing to book spring nitrogen this early in the year because they weren't quite sure where the price was going to be or what the availability was. The fact that they're comfortable booking spring urea right now and quoting a price, I think that says something as far as where the market has gone as far as the stability is concerned.
I guess the other thing worth noting is if we think about where that falls and how we calculate nitrogen rates with the MRTN, that comes down to about 37 cents a pound of nitrogen for that anhydrous and then it's 54 cents a pound for that spring urea. That's a pretty significant price difference there. I mean, you're looking at 17 cents a pound difference and savings for that fall anhydrous application. I think a lot of farmers kind of pending on what the weather conditions are like, they're probably going to take a look at that and take a long hard look at fall application. We know that historically it's not performed as well as the spring application, but that price difference is going to make a lot of people take a look at it.
Daniel Kaiser:
Yeah, and I'm kind of surprised too that they're booking out that far right now, particularly with some of the spring applications, just thinking about that, but I haven't really heard too many questions or comments related to supply. I mean, one of the questions that did come up was a grower around the Faribault area was asking about triple superphosphate instead of MAP because it sounded like they were having some issues getting MAP, which I was kind of surprised in that area, but triple's not something that tends to come up that often just because the availability of it's relatively low. I mean, it's not a bad consideration if you are applying or want to apply fall phosphate. I mean, in terms of availability we see absolutely no difference between it, so it I think was one of the major questions the grower had with that particular product was just concerned about whether or not it becomes available.
In fact, I mean, you look at triple versus MAP... You look at MAP and DAP, a lot of the arguments always boils down to the fact of what happens when you put the stuff in water in the soil solution, that MAP is more acidifying than DAP, but if you look at triple, triple is even more acidifying than MAP in terms of that area around the granule, so availability-wise... I mean, we've used it quite a bit, and if you're dealing with a situation where it's more acidic soil, I really wouldn't worry about it at all. If that is the option, I mean, the advantage there is you don't have to worry about how much to credit the nitrogen because it's not there in triple. That's kind of been one of the bigger questions we've had, especially with the P and K going on earlier, whether or not any of that could be credited back for the following year, even though our recommendations say so or that you should be credited. There's always those question marks because the earlier you put it on, the more likely it's going to be nitrified. That's been the main thing.
I mean, it's good to see the prices drop. I mean, I think if you're in a situation where you were a little stingier in some fields, I think that it might be a good idea to go out and just maybe have some of those sampled just to get an idea of where things are at this fall and just to get an idea of whether or not if prices are cheaper relative to the cash price. I mean, most things will moderate around a 0.1 price ratio if you look at price per unit nutrient to the value of the crop. I mean, if it is a little bit cheaper than that, I mean, it might be worth kind of looking into what these rates are and taking advantage of the cheaper prices in the areas that you can across the state. But, again, I think I'd kind of stress if you haven't had a soil test, I mean, it might be a good chance to do that, to start looking at that just to see where things are at after a few years of higher prices.
Jeff Strock:
Dan, I think you hit something right on the head that's going to also be really important to think about as we go into the fall for fertilization and what farmers' programs are going to look like, and that is now that we're kind of coming out of three years of drought, what are those nutrient levels going to be looking like? I'm thinking some of these areas where the corn crop hasn't maybe been doing good or people have been running continuous corn out there, are we getting accumulations of nitrate, and those kinds of things. Probably important things for people to think about in terms of soil testing as we move into the fall as well before they make those decisions.
Brad Carlson:
Yeah. There's a couple things that Dan said that I'd like to expand on a little bit. One of those is that we have been looking at this issue of MAP and DAP versus triple superphosphate. The TSP has sort of disappeared off the market primarily because the purchaser doesn't mind getting that extra nitrogen or the extra fertilizer value when they do the application, but of course there's been environmental implications on whether that nitrogen ever ends up in the crop or if it's just simply ending up in the water. There's parts of the state where I know particularly the State Department of Agriculture has been an advocate for trying to get that back into the pipeline.
Now, the one thing I would say about that is is with as dry as it is this fall, the risk of losing the nitrogen out of that MAP and DAP isn't anywhere near what it is a lot of years when it's wet. From that standpoint, there's probably not a big difference in most parts of the state, although the southeastern part of the state I still would sort of question because if it gets wet in the spring, that could still get flushed in those light soils. The other thing that I think is worth talking about a little bit is there continues to be some erosion in the availability of anhydrous ammonia in the state. These are business decisions that are being made on the part of the fertilizer dealers, whether it's relative to their facilities, their logistics, safety, and so forth. It doesn't really matter.
The end result is at the end is that the farmer's not able to access anhydrous ammonia as a fertilizer option. I think the thing that we need to keep reminding you of is just simply that that's something that's going on that's completely independent of our fertilizer recommendations, and so particularly we're not real high on to the point of saying, "Just simply don't do it, putting on urea in the fall." If anhydrous isn't available to you locally, we really don't look at that as being an option in most parts of the state unless you get way farther up into the northwest part of the state. I think farmers need to take that into account, that those decisions are also impacting their management. It's not simply a matter of, "Well, we're just going to swap out a different kind of fertilizer because my dealer is no longer selling anhydrous."
Daniel Kaiser:
It's one of the things to remember too with urea is the fact that the loss pathways, there's two of them. I mean, and I think a lot of growers... I don't know if they really think about that. We talk about leaching, leaching, leaching, leaching, but it may be a point at which that urea, whatever, the nitrogen there is not getting to that point because it's volatilizing before it gets there. That's one of the things I've been looking at in some of my current studies is looking at some of these inhibitors because there's a lot I think on the industry side thinking that technology or inhibitors will fix all this or we can stabilize it and get urea like anhydrous, and it just doesn't work that way.
I mean, you've got that extra step in there with volatility that I would be concerned about, and it's not necessarily that that nitrogen is getting to the water, but it's a situation where you could lose a substantial portion of it through gaseous loss and you're still losing some of that material and potentially risking having to come back in and apply it. That's the thing with this, it isn't just that simple, we make that switch and we can stabilize it with anything because we just don't have that technology that can do so right now. That's one of the things really to think about with fall urea.
We're kind of at the point right now with our best management practices just saying just really putting fall urea is not a recommended practice here in the state. It has been acceptable in some parts of the state, it's just getting harder to defend that based on the data we have. You look at even... You go to the western part of the state all the way from the far southwest corner or the northwest corner, it just doesn't really always... If you look at it consistently, if you look at it, it looks like we're taking some hits with that. It's something to think about with that. As Brad said, as we lose anhydrous I think it's one of those things that worries me because really we shouldn't be thinking about, particularly for corn production, urea in the fall. It just is more of a risk compared to some of the other practices.
Brad Carlson:
Well, and, Dan, just again to expand just a tiny little bit on what you just said, I think the other thing that farmers often don't think about is there's various components when we talk about nitrogen loss, and of course we focus a lot on the soil water and the leaching or denitrification, but the other element is time. When you're doing that fall application, there's just a very long, long period of time between when you apply that fertilizer and when the crop is going to need it next year. A lot of bad things can happen in that amount of time, and particularly in the case of urea where it could be lost to the air as well as into the water, there's a lot of time for that to happen. While I think we oftentimes focus on the fact that the soils are frozen in Minnesota and we think of that all as suspended animation, when you're looking at that volatility aspect on urea, that may not necessarily be the case because that is not a temperature dependent transformation that happens in the environment.
Jack Wilcox:
What should growers be thinking about headed into the fall?
Daniel Kaiser:
I'm going to kind of go back to that point that we were just making here with the source issue with nitrogen. It is I think a critical factor in your decision in terms of what source you're applying because there's a significant interaction if you look at the 4Rs between source and timing. I mean, we know that, particularly for nitrogen, that not all the sources are going to behave the same just because of what form's actually there. It's one of the things, as Brad was mentioning, we always think of being that we're in the deep freeze, that we don't see a lot of these processes happen after the soil start to freeze. I mean, last year I think's a good... I mean, if you look at last winter, I don't think we really completely froze. The risk there I think is for greater potential for potentially some of that nitrogen being volatilized out of the field.
I mean, it's been an interesting few years with these dry weather conditions because Brad, I mean, you've had some of the data from MVTL looking at the residual nitrate and Jeff mentioned this. I mean, we could be carrying a lot of residual nitrate, but I've seen it kind of over time with these drier conditions where it seems like some of that's gone down, I mean, in terms of some of that carryover, particularly if you're dealing with corn following beans where initially in some of these when we were... A couple of years ago, it seemed like we had a lot of residual nitrate that with some of the weather we've had, it is something to consider.
Now, Brad did mention or has mentioned at some point the timing, particularly if you're looking at a two-foot soil test. I mean, normally we like to take that sample, if that is something you want to look at for residual nitrate, closer to the time of application. But looking at kind of what I've been seeing with that, if we start looking at the processes by which we can lose some of that nitrate, that looking at our data we see instances where we see more nitrate in the spring, we see instances where we see less nitrate in the spring. It's really not as predictable.
The differences, though, aren't as much, so as a screening tool, I mean, it might be a good opportunity if you can go out and get some samples taken before some fertilizer goes on just to see what's out there because kind of what I've seen in some of the studies is that two-foot test has generally been a good idea to screen for at least some fields that you have some very high numbers in, that if you're looking at trying to make some decisions in the spring with some applications, you at least can kind of go into that with a situation where you have some data saying, "We may have some residual nitrate that we can credit to that particular crop."
Again, I talked about this before. I think it's a good idea, particularly with fertilizer prices the way they're at. If you were cutting or if you have any questions, it's a good idea I think to go out this fall and take some samples just to see where things are at, but you got to kind of know that the drought conditions, there might be some challenges out there. I mean, maybe we'll see higher residual nitrates. Potassium I would expect to see probably low values if you've got some drier fields. I mean, we tend to see that. It's just kind of knowing when you get that data back how the dry weather conditions affect things, that you really kind of need to have some of that information to kind of know how to interpret some of those tests, particularly for some of these false samplings.
Brad Carlson:
Well, I think the other thing, Dan, to think about is is if you're doing a fall soil test, and I know I got input from farmers that their consultant really only wants to do fall tests because the spring is busy and potentially it's muddy and you can't get out and get a good soil sample and everything gets kind of crushed in there, if you're going to take the fall soil test, also realize that because the loss processes of nitrogen are water-based, if it gets really wet between the time you take that soil test and the time that the crop is planted and growing and eating the nitrogen, it's possible some of that nitrogen could be lost. That's, I guess, always the caveat. That's one of the reasons why we've historically said go ahead and do it in Western Minnesota, just primarily because the odds are higher that you're not going to lose that nitrogen from water-based processes versus the central parts of the state and the eastern parts of the state.
However, really the science applies all the way across, and that is if you want to take a fall test, find the number is what it is at the time you took it, then the question just simply becomes, "Is that still there at the time the crop is growing and using it?" I guess really when you get to that point, you just simply need to look backward and see what the weather was like and the soil conditions were like and decide whether you feel like you can still use the number. I had somebody at Farmfest who was suggesting to me, "Well, maybe we'll take one in the fall and then we'll take a follow-up in the spring." I'm like, "Well, I don't know why you would do that because whatever you get for a number in the spring, that's the number you're going to use, so what point was there in taking the fall one in the first place? I mean, it'd be interesting to see what kind of change there might've been, but really you're just doubling your effort and doubling your costs unless you just love a lot of information."
Daniel Kaiser:
Well, and I'll show some examples. I mean, we had a study that we finished up. We were looking at pre-plant nitrate tests. One of the aspects of that study was looking at fall versus spring comparisons, and we only had four sites, which isn't a lot, but if you look at it, it didn't seem like it was any more or less a chance that we saw higher versus lower soil tests in the spring compared to the fall sampling. I mean, the interesting thing is we had a field that was near St. Charles, which is an area that we normally wouldn't suggest using a two-foot test, particularly a fall test. The numbers in the fall came back I think around 25, 26 part per million, which if you look at our crediting, our crediting would put that probably in crediting at least about 160 lbs of nitrogen for that following crop.
We came back in the spring and actually the numbers were slightly higher in the spring. I mean, I had some sites in the central part of the state around Madison Lake, those... I mean, they come back a little bit lower, but the numbers were generally less than 10 part per million nitrate in a two-foot sample. Again, that St. Charles site's I think an interesting question there because I could have probably used at least that data to say, "Okay, this field might bear going back and taking a relook maybe in the spring with that or maybe I'll follow up with a... Maybe put a starter right down and follow up with a pre-sidedress nitrate test just to see what's there to see if I need to reapply something." That's kind of some of the things I've been thinking about with that is, "How do we use some of this technology that gives us more time?" I think that's the issue.
You look at a lot of growers, I know why the decision they make because the time crunch, particularly in the spring, is such that there isn't always time to get some of this stuff done. Now, fall we tend to have more time, so that's kind of the question. That's some of the things we're looking at right now because I think there are some options out there, and I like options that give me time to make decisions. We talk a lot about in-season sensing, and the issue is we don't always see those deficiencies show up almost until it's too late. That's kind of the issue is with nitrogen, we're fairly limited. Now, phosphorus, if we're talking about dry falls or wet falls or whatever, it doesn't matter. That tends to be pretty stable across time. I mean, the two that you're going to have to watch out for is nitrate, if you're sampling for that, and also potassium, those two. I mean, looking at depending on where you're at, you could see some significant differences in terms of this fall and how the conditions in the field are affecting those soil test results.
Brad Carlson:
I think the last thing as a reminder is that our soil nitrate test is calibrated to two feet deep. I had some conversations at Farmfest with another individual who was talking about iron chlorosis in soybeans, which the evidence has shown in the past that can be fired by nitrate, and they had taken some six-inch soil samples and they found that their nitrate levels were sky-high. Yeah. We already mentioned the fact that most of the nitrate is moving into the plant through water uptake, and when it's been as dry as it's been, that's just sitting there. I guess just kind of a reminder to farmers, if you're sampling for P and K and you're taking a six-inch soil test, don't just simply check that box and say, "Yeah, I want the nitrate analysis too." Because it's going to give you a really high number that's really probably not able to be interpreted for the sake of making a nitrogen credit.
Jack Wilcox:
There's a lot of talk about environmental issues related to fertilizer and the potential for future regulation. How should that play into application decisions for this fall?
Brad Carlson:
Well, I think the thing is is we know that these issues are swirling around in the public. We still see articles in the newspaper about this stuff. As far as from a policy standpoint in the state, we just went through a period where we instituted our nitrogen rule, or I should say the Department of Agriculture instituted the nitrogen rule, which is really targeting areas that are highly prone to nitrogen loss, particularly looking at fall application of fertilizers in those spots. One of the things that I guess... The way I kind of think about this is from kind of a practical standpoint or a farmer standpoint is one of the reasons why you don't want regulation is because you want to maintain flexibility to adapt to conditions and different fields and the weather and what the year is like and so on and so forth.
But that being said, there's just simply certain practices that probably aren't acceptable under any circumstance, and that's one of the reasons why there wasn't really all that much kickback or fallout when that nitrogen rule went in place. These are parts of the state where we've been saying for decades, "Don't do this. Don't put fertilizer on sandy soil or on the karst landscape where there's shallow topsoil in the fall." It really didn't seem like that big of a deal when they finally said, "Well, we're just going to make it so that you can't do that anymore."
When it comes to other aspects of nitrogen management, I guess we've already kind of harped on this, that we really are down on fall application of urea. I'm not sure a lot of us, at least from the university standpoint, are probably going to shed a lot of tears if that did get regulated because we've been telling you for a long time not to do it. Now, when it comes to other practices, though, that's kind of where the rubber meets the road as far as being able to maintain flexibility of rates, whether you think an inhibitor is going to perform or not, and some of those sorts of things really kind of change from one year to the next relative to performance and based on conditions.
I guess really the key here is is I think farmers need to stay in tune with what the conditions are in their area and know what kind of practices, and particularly if they're applying excessively high rates, that that poses a threat to our industry, that you could end up bringing some regulation upon yourself in the long run that ends up costing you the flexibility to change your management from one year to the next. I really think every farmer needs to keep that in mind, every fertilizer dealer needs to keep that in mind, that if you're doing something that probably your neighbors would look at and say, "You're going to screw that up for the rest of us." Then maybe that's something you should be thinking about not doing.
Beyond that, I think it's important to remember that farmers, industry folks, you're always welcome to call us and see what our opinion is on whether something is good, bad or otherwise as far as a management practice is concerned. Beyond that, I think the state is... We're currently in the process of rewriting our nutrient reduction strategy. That is going to come out in 2025. That will come along with local action plans based on the watersheds around the state, and at that point farmers are probably going to be asked to start making some commitments to practices that are going to have the impact of reducing nitrate loss to water. In the meantime, I don't look for there being a lot of regulation other than to say let's just keep managing the best we can.
Daniel Kaiser:
Yeah, and that's one of the things that we're challenged with, particularly... You look at a lot of groups we talk to, they focus a lot on the rate that growers are applying. I think certainly if we are overapplying, if we could tighten up our rates to get to more close to the optimal rate, we could see some improvement. I think that the main thing, though, to me when it comes to loss really is that timing aspect right now too because, I mean, we really can see some significant effects of timing on the potential risk for loss just by how nitrogen can convert because the thing about it is we know what form's going into the soil, but beyond that point, I mean, things are really out of our control. I mean, yes, we can apply inhibitors, but they aren't foolproof either, and if you look at a lot of the data with inhibitors that you were still better off focusing those on late fall application situations where soils have stabilized below 50 degrees with anhydrous. It still seems to be the best result with that.
We always kind of look at technology to being the answer, and with nitrogen, I mean, it really is one of those things while there's some things we can do for some improvement, it's not that silver bullet that's going to fix all of our particular problems. I mean, the other thing that's been creeping into the market's been biologicals. While this isn't really a full-on discussion on biologicals, I have my doubts on those as well right now because I think most of the growers that are finding some success with the products where they've been able to cut the rates and put the products on are in situations they've probably been overapplying anyway. That's one of the things. I mean, you can have a grower like that that talks and their neighbor picks up on that, maybe that neighbor's not as aggressive on nitrogen, cuts his rate by 30, 40 lbs and takes a pretty significant yield hit.
It's one of the things that we do have a lot of unpredictability in terms of... Although it is a little more predictable what's happening when fertilizer's applied to the soil, I mean, these biologicals, we have no idea what's happening. We have no idea if the thing's alive when you apply it or what happens after you apply it. I mean, there's kind of a lot of... I don't envy a lot of growers. I mean, there's a lot of decisions you have to make. I mean, I think timing's probably one of the big ones that you have to think about timing when you think about source because when you talk about environmental issues, that tends to result in a lot of problems right now. We just don't want to get into the situation where we're overly regulated in terms of the rate because we know that that rate's a moving target out there.
That's kind of been one of the challenges we get asked a lot of times on variable rate nitrogen application. I wish I had a straight answer for that. I mean, we're working on a few tools, but it's not like P and K where if you don't use it, it should be "banked" in the soil. Then with P and K, we've got a good kind of risk assessment tool in terms of what we think the probability we're going to get a yield increase based on what your given soil test level. Just doesn't work that way necessarily with nitrate just because of the... In nitrogen because of the transformation, so it's... I kind of wish we had some better options out there, but they're just really things we're working on. Hopefully we'll make some strides, but we've been probably talking about some of these same things for the last 10, 20 years.
Jeff Strock:
Yeah. Dan, it's one of those things I think you and Brad both kind of hit on that kind of as I was listening and reflecting a little bit that the things that we've been talking about today, really a lot about sources of nitrogen fertilizer and timing and rate and hoping that the farmers and the co-ops are following those recommendations that we have. It's always an educational piece, I kind of feel like, when I talk to people, especially people who are not part of the farming community, that say, "Well, our environmental quality problems with water would be all better if farmers would just stop overapplying nitrogen fertilizer."
It's not necessarily the case that farmers are overapplying fertilizer. If you look at something like that uncontrollable factor of weather, we can have our farmers go out and do the absolute best management practices they possibly can, and we get warm conditions in the fall late, then wet conditions or we get really wet conditions in the spring and they have nothing that they can really do about that. It's really hard to be taking the blame for environmental problems when sometimes those things that we're out there trying to manage in the real world are out of our control.
Jack Wilcox:
Are there any last words from the group?
Daniel Kaiser:
Well, I did touch on biologicals a little bit. I haven't really been working on anything, but I know that's been a hot topic. There was a report put together by Dave Franzen that was from the north central states. I mean, if you want to kind of check out some of that data, I mean, it's caused a little bit of heartburn within the biological community, and I was talking to some of the industry people, but it's one of the things that... It's another technology, and it's just, to me, not there yet in terms of some people think that we're going to be able to completely replace our nitrogen applications for corn. I don't think that's the case with it.
I mean, it's kind of one of those things that may eventually incorporate into that, but if you want to check that out, I mean, that's one thing I would just kind of recommend because of some of the questions I've been getting on that because just you see a big explosion of a lot of these products out there right now, and while specialty products haven't necessarily been uncommon in the marketplace and biologicals, in fact, you see some testing a long time ago, just right now I think everybody's looking for that sustainability piece and looking at a situation where we can do more with less.
While these things aren't free, it's one of the things to kind of remember about that is you just need to test them properly if you're going to be looking at them kind of moving into next year. I just wanted to throw that out there because I know there's been a few questions on it, and just talking to some industry peoples that I know, we've seen a little bit of heartburn from on their end in terms of some of the data that's come out, at least from the university side, on some of these products.
Brad Carlson:
I guess I'd just say anybody that's listening out there that wants to kind of hone up on your nitrogen understanding and some of the nuance on nitrogen management, our Nitrogen Smart courses are all available on demand online. If you go to the website, z.umn.edu/nitrogensmart, the original fundamentals course is there, our deep dive into the 4Rs is there, as well as the manure management course, and that... The platform that's on is the one the university uses for online college courses. You do need to register and get access, but once you do, you can kind of pick the parts of those programs you want to watch. We obviously encourage you to watch the whole thing, but if there's specific areas that you want to look at such as the timing and so forth, those are broken down into those pieces and you can consume those kind at your leisure. You can do at 2:00 in the morning if you want to.
Jack Wilcox:
All right. That about does it for this episode of the Nutrient Management Podcast. We'd like to thank the Agricultural Fertilizer Research and Education Council, or AFREC, for supporting the podcast. Thanks for listening.
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