The current period of economic uncertainty will again be front and center as retailers consult with growers heading into the 2019 production season. Growers will be looking for any suggestions on how to lower input costs and find production efficiencies wherever possible. Given that fertilizers and nutrients represent a substantial portion of cropping expenses, growers will likely focus on nutrients first, before looking at other costs like seed, weed and insect control and equipment.
When revisiting nutrient management plans with retailers, growers will often be reluctant to scale back on the units of nitrogen they apply per acre, despite nitrogen fertilizer representing the biggest nutrient expense. One adjustment growers will likely explore when evaluating existing nutrient plans for 2019 will be to eliminate the use of a nitrogen stabilizer.
Consider nitrogen use efficiency versus input expense
Kent Bennis, market development specialist with Corteva Agriscience™, Agriculture Division of DowDuPont, explains why cutting the use of a nitrogen stabilizer from nutrient management plans is a flawed approach. Bennis says farmers shouldn’t view nitrogen stabilizers as an unnecessary expense, but, rather, they should look deeper into the important role stabilizers play in nitrogen use efficiency.
“When economic times are tough, farmers tend to look at input costs strictly by the numbers and cut what they don’t consider a necessity,” Bennis says. “What growers should be looking at is nitrogen use efficiency that can be attributed directly to using a nitrogen stabilizer, not the cost. ROI can be a difficult sell, especially during a depressed farm economy. And while farmers remain diligent in their efforts to protect water quality, economics is likely the driver. The positive economic impact of stabilizing nitrogen that is often overlooked should be factored in to the decision and benefits reflected in nutrient management plans.”
N-Serve, Instinct and PinnitMax nitrogen stabilizers help maximize growers’ largest input investment by extending nitrogen availability during critical growth stages. With more nitrogen available for crop uptake for a longer period of time, growers can often reduce the amount of nitrogen applied initially and lessen the need to come back with additional nitrogen applications later in the season. With more nitrogen available for uptake longer into the growing season, growers can apply less nitrogen and still realize an increase in yield.
Stay the course
Jason Strand, manager of precision agriculture with Frontier Coop, North Bend, Nebraska, is advising his customers to stay the course and not make any major adjustments — or cuts — to nutrient management plans. He is also a proponent of looking at stabilizer use from an overall nitrogen use efficiency perspective and an investment versus a cost.
“Our goal is to sit down with customers in the late fall after harvest and make a plan for the next year,” Strand says. “We’ve developed long-range, say five-year plans, for a lot of our growers that we’ll re-evaluate every year. In most cases, we recommend keeping things consistent and counsel growers to not let economic factors dictate a major deviation, namely expense, to what has been working in the past.”
Strand says the reason Frontier Coop likes to get plans finalized as early as possible post-harvest is to prevent customers from coming back later, say in February, second-guessing expenses and wanting to cut back on everything, then hope for the best.
“Making last-minute changes based on economic factors is a risk,” he says. “We advocate getting a plan in place and staying with it. You look at your break-evens, obviously, but you do what you got to do to make money. Whether it’s a stabilizer, a fungicide application, you put that cost in the plan up front and figure that into the whole spreadsheet.”
Strand and Frontier Coop are strong proponents for using a nitrogen stabilizer. So much so that 100 percent of the nitrogen fertilizer acres custom applied by Frontier Coop automatically include a nitrogen stabilizer.
“On every acre we custom-apply, a stabilizer is automatic,” Strand says. “You get it no matter what. We don’t get much pushback because we put it into their bottom line. It’s a pretty easy sell as we position a stabilizer giving them more bang for their buck. We encourage stabilizers as a protection to their investments and to increase their nitrogen use efficiency.”
Despite the economic challenges, Strand doesn’t anticipate growers backing off or scaling back on nitrogen next year, especially with those who are using a stabilizer.
“Our recommendation, assuming they are still aiming for top yield, is to keep with the plan and don’t let economic anxiety dictate solid nutrient management approaches. There will always be good and bad years. But, over the long haul, it pays to be consistent and not overreact.”