Maximizing profitability
Revised nitrogen-application rates for corn allow farmers to adjust their use of nitrogen fertilizer for maximum profitability. Photo by Jim Gill
Farmers have a new tool to maximize profitability. Revised nitrogen application rate guidelines for corn give farmers flexibility in determining a nitrogen application rate by allowing them to take into account economic conditions, including the cost of nitrogen fertilizer.
University of Wisconsin-Madison/Extension soil scientists Larry Bundy and Carrie Laboski note that while the yield response of corn to applied nitrogen has not changed, the economics of corn production has.
Laboski says, "The new nitrogen rate guidelines were developed as a means to provide growers guidance on how much they might adjust their nitrogen- application rates and maintain or enhance profitability depending upon their individual farm situation."
Bundy and Laboski worked with other soil fertility specialists in Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa and Illinois to develop a regional approach to nitrogen-rate guidelines that are based on getting the most return on nitrogen fertilizer using field research data.
Growers use specific information about soil, crops and the cost of nitrogen to identify a nitrogen rate that will, on average, maximize economic return to nitrogen use. Farmers also can identify a range of nitrogen rates that will produce economic profitability within one dollar per acre of the maximum return rate. —Lorre Kolb
For more information: UW-Madison/Extension Soil Scientist Carrie Laboski, laboski@wisc.edu, (608) 263-2795