Top tips to boost nutrient use efficiency
Natalia Gomez shares her three tips on improving your nutrient use efficiency
With the combined forces of cost of production and market prices often a squeeze for vegetable growers, getting the best return on investment from fertiliser applications is important.
Increasing the nutrient use efficiency of your soil and crops is a key way to get more from your fertiliser, and fortunately there are real, practical steps you can take to do this.
Natalia Gomez is a member of Incitec Pivot’s Farm Services team. A Fertcare Accredited agronomist with extensive experience across row crop vegetables, horticulture and permanent plantings, Natalia is passionate about helping growers get more from their crops.
Here, Natalia shares her three top tips for improving nutrient use efficiency on farm.
1) Keep your nitrogen where you want it
Nitrogen-based fertilisers are the most widely used fertilisers in the world. However, nitrogen can be lost to the environment through several pathways, including:
Volatilisation: volatilisation occurs when applied nitrogen, in the form of urea, converts into gaseous ammonia and escapes into the atmosphere.
Denitrification: denitrification occurs when soil bacteria convert nitrates into nitrogen gas (usually in waterlogged soil conditions), releasing it into the air. This process removes essential nitrogen from crops and emits greenhouse gas into the atmosphere.
·Leaching: Leaching occurs when the nitrate form of nitrogen, moves down into the soil, away from the plant roots and potentially into groundwater or other water bodies.
These loss pathways can cost farmers significantly in both poor ROI from their fertiliser investment and lost yield opportunity. Fortunately, research has led to the development of fertiliser technologies that can mitigate these losses and help you keep your nutrients where you want them. Read more about enhanced efficiency fertilisers here.
2) Humates and soil health
Soil health can be enhanced with carbon, and using humate products can improve the nutrient use efficiency of fertilisers applied to your soil. Humates have the following benefits:
Humic acids act as chelators, binding essential nutrients like iron, calcium and magnesium in a form that is more readily available to plants with the potential to promote efficient nutrient uptake.
Humates can improve soil structure by boosting water holding capacity, localised cation exchange capacity and microbial activity, all of which contribute to healthier, more fertile soils.
Humic acids can help plants better tolerate stress, by enhancing their resistance to environmental pressures like drought, salinity and certain diseases or pests.
Find out more about how humates can help improve your soil health here:
3) Ensuring an even spread
Nutrient use efficiency is greatly helped by ensuring each plant in your crop or pasture gets even access to applied nutrients.
Compound products, like Granulock, are a great way to improve the evenness and efficiency of nutrient applications. They offer:
Balanced nutrition: each granule of Granulock contains nutrients at equal rates, improving the uniformity of nutrient distribution in crops and reducing issues with nutrient segregation during transport or application.
Evenly-sized granules: Granulock granules are uniformly sized, for even spreading, crop growth and produce quality.
Efficiency: With fewer fertiliser types to handle, storage and transportation is simplified with compound products like Granulock. The convenience of applying multiple nutrients in a single fertiliser reduces the need for multiple applications and blends, saving time and labour costs.
Find out more about the way you can boost your nutrient use efficiency with compounds here:
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“Enhancing nutrient use efficiency isn't just about maximising yields; it's about optimising the resources we have to sustainably nourish both crops and the environment for generations to come.”
— Natalia Gomez