Wooster, Ohio-A new rate calculator available online provides corn farmers with an innovative way to incorporate economics in finding the least nitrogen for maximum yield, according to developers at Ohio State University Extension. They report that the free program calculates the optimum nitrogen rate using only the price of corn at harvest and the cost of N at application. “The tool is part of a new nitrogen application program that is slowly replacing old recommendations that based fertilizer inputs on yield potential. That is, if a grower wanted 150 bushels per acre, he would apply the maximum nitrogen needed to get those 150 bushels,” said Robert Mullen, an OSU Extension fertility specialist with the Ohio Agricultural Research and Development Center. “However, through years of research we found no correlation between nitrogen applications and yield. That is, you eventually reach a yield ceiling and applying more nitrogen doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll get more yield, and it could also mean that you could apply less nitrogen to achieve the same yield. So we figured with the way nitrogen prices are today, considering the economics was timely.” The calculator can be accessed at http://agcrops.osu.edu/fertility.
Transparency Across the Fertilizer Value-Chain