Nutrient Management

Managing the nutritional needs of a crop with fertilizers is a very important task. Feed it with too little...and yields and quality are compromised. Feed it with too much...and the over-application results in reduced profit. The point where profit is maximized is where we need to be. With this very small target one would think that all agronomists fertility recommendations would be nearly the same as they try to hit the bulls-eye. Ironically, this couldn't be more of a contrast as nutrient management approaches vary widely.

It is commonly known that if a farmer talks to 10 different agronomists that work with 10 different soil test laboratories that you will get 10 different fertilizer recommendations for the same field. Nutrient recommendations can be based on many different philosophies. Some of the more popular ones include: nutrient response curves, crop removal balanced with fertilizer addition, base saturation, virtual soil test, yield targeting, and many more. There are also many different extraction methods that measure nutrient sources. Some systems are calibrated with regional field trials, others assume that research conducted by credible scientists 1000 of miles away is still valid. CropPro has experience with every test procedure and philosophy on the market.

The most interesting part of this soap opera is that no system approach is always going to be correct in every situation. CropPro does not argue in favour of any single lab or philosophy. Rather than relying totally on some predictive model, we have shifted our focus to on-farm trials in order to provide the finest fertilizer recommendations. 

The Correct Answers are Hidden in the Field

The first time we started conducting on-farm trials with different rates of nitrogen fertilizer we were astonished at how far off a standard fertilizer recommendation system could be. Years later and 100's of trials completed, we have made promising improvements on ways to fertilize profitably. Today, CropPro continues to test innovative ways to fine-tune fertilizer applications and provides leading-edge services to constantly improve our success rate based on our field check-up program.

Click on the quick links on the right to learn more about our unique approach to nutrient management.