UK farmers and growers spend around £500m a year on nitrogen-based fertilisers to boost crop production – nothing wrong in trying to boost production, it’s what has been happening since man stopped being hunter gatherers and moved to farming settlements.
We keep adding – nitrogen, phosphate and other micronutrients, but how do we know how much to add? Are we adding too much? Are we adding too little?
From a financial and environmental perspective (especially if we are not using the soil as a bank) we only need to add what the soil can’t provide and the crop needs, which should be simple to map out
Step one – Determine your soil’s existing nutrient availability
Step two – Determine your crop’s nutrient needs by growth stage to deliver your desired quality and tonnage.
Step three– Place one over the other and BINGO there’s the gap between what the soil can provide and what the crop needs.
Simples… or maybe not.
If you don’t feel like spending your afternoons checking what nutrient mix your baking potatoes need at GS5 and if your chippers need the same or something slightly different at GS8 , you can utilise the OptiYield system of soil analysis and crop nutrient model that results in step three – a full set of nutrient recommendations.
The advice is clearly laid out by growth stage and covers all nutritional requirements from base nutrients to foliar applications, which isn’t just for fertiliser recommendations but also all the necessary synergistic biostimulants, microbials and biologicals.
Click here to see an example of a crop nutrient management plan https://bit.ly/3S860YX