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EXTENSION REPORT
Baldwin County Extension Office
302A Byrne Street
Bay Minette, AL 36507
Ken Kelley
Regional Extension Agent
Animal Science
May 6, 2008
What Do We Do With These High Fertilizer Prices?
Anyone priced fertilizer lately? If you haven’t, prepare yourself for some sticker shock. Prices are at an all time high. Most of this is due to the spike in fuel prices. Ammonia nitrate is produced through a process which uses natural gas to produce extremely high heat and pressure. I don’t have to tell you what fuel prices are doing lately (you may not have bought any fertilizer, but I know you have driven somewhere). Anyway, all of this has driven prices higher and higher…to a point now where the majority of the calls that I receive relate in some way to how to deal with fertilizer costs. So, I figured we would cover a few of these.
First: soil sample, soil sample, and soil sample! I know that for as long as you have dealt with any University or Extension folk they have told you to soil sample. A lot of times it seems like that might just be an easy out for an agent that doesn’t know what to tell you (and maybe sometimes it is…). But not now! With the prices being what they are, you need to make every pound of fertilizer that you pay for count. If you don’t need it, don’t use it! If you do need it, use it! The only way to know is to take a soil sample (by the way, soil samples are not any higher).
Second: control your weeds. Dogfennell uses nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium just like forages do. We did a series of weed meetings around the region which some of you attended. If you didn’t make it, here are some pointers. Know you weeds. There are numerous chemicals that control weeds in pastures and hayfields. Many times there are several different chemicals that will work on the weeds that you are having a problem with; the key is to pick the chemical that does the best job at the most economical price. Believe me when I tell you that the cost per acre difference between the high end chemicals and the low end chemicals can be pretty extensive (sometimes double the cost per acre). Once you have identified your weed, you can consult your IPM guide to see what chemicals are effective on your particular weed (in case you don’t know what an IPM guide is, it is an abbreviation of Integrated Pest Management strategies and is produced yearly by the extension system). The current IPM guide can be found on the extension website, www.aces.edu by simply picking the publications tab, highlight agriculture and select Integrated Pest Management, then scroll down to IPM Pastures and Forage Crops. Another thing to consider once you have identified your weed is the biology of the weed itself. You need to give some consideration as to whether the weed is a summer annual, winter annual, perennial, biennial, etc. The month of May is not the time to treat winter annuals. Yes, you can still see them, and yes, you can still kill them. However, most have already produced seed and will be back next year. Usually in this situation the winter annual will start to die pretty quickly anyway, and you have cost yourself some money with spray. May is, however, the time to begin looking at your summer annuals and perennials. Many of the common summer annuals and perennials are starting to get some size on them. Remember that with weeds, they are usually the easiest to kill when they are small (that’s not always the case, but most of the time it is). So, identify your weeds, understand their life cycle, and pick the most economical herbicide that will give you control.
Last: understand what you are buying. When you get your soil sample back (remember the one that I told you would be especially important this year), do you know how to read it? The analysis will tell you several things (all of which can be and are important, although some are more important than others). First thing, look at your pH. You need to keep your pH between 6 and 7 for most forages that we would want to produce. This is especially important if you are trying to grow legumes like clover (which by the way is a really good idea since legumes can produce their own nitrogen). Next, look at the recommendations per acre for nitrogen, phosphorous, and potassium. Your soil sample will call for nitrogen. The reason that I can tell you that is that soil labs in our part of the country don’t actually measure the nitrogen that is contained in your soil. The main reason for that is the type of soil that we have. Nitrogen in our soil and environment doesn’t stay in the growth zone of forages for long enough to leave any measurable amount to be sampled. The recommendations that you see on the soil test are amounts that have been determined by research to produce average or above average crops. The phosphorous and potassium are different stories however. They are measured in your particular soils (phosphorus and potassium don’t tend to move like nitrogen does – especially phosphorous), so we need to know what you have in order to know how much to tell you to add to your soil. What you will see in all of these recommendations is an amount of actual nutrient (in pounds) that needs to be added to the soil. An important point to remember is that if you see that you need 60 pounds of nitrogen, that does not equal 60 pound of ammonia nitrate (I use ammonia nitrate as an example, but the other soil nutrients are the same thing with different percentages). Ammonia nitrate has an analysis of 34-0-0. What that means is that the fertilizer has 34 % nitrogen, 0% phosphorus, and 0% potassium. So, if you need 60 lbs of nitrogen you would need about 175 lbs. of ammonia nitrate. Keep this in mind when you tell your fertilizer dealer what you want. Also keep in mind that many times there may be several sources of a particular nutrient available. The key when dealing with this is to compare apples to apples. For example, if you need a nitrogen source your fertilizer dealer could have ammonia nitrate, ammonia sulfate, urea, liquids, etc., etc... When you have this situation figure how much each different nutrient source costs per pound of nitrogen. When you get down to it, you need a set amount of nitrogen and you are looking for the cheapest per pound product that you can buy. There are certainly drawbacks to different forms of nutrients, and I would advise you to educate yourself further on some of the nuances of the different fertilizer materials to determine if they will work for you (I will be glad to talk with you if you have questions). The driving point to this is to know what you need, know what you can buy to supply that nutrient, and determine the most economical form available (that will work in your situation).
In conclusion, there is no simple solution to the high prices we have to deal with. Like the fuels for our vehicles, sometimes we have to make some difficult choices. However, if you will dedicate yourself to being a good manager and doing everything you can to mediate the current prices you can optimize your fertilization program and produce the forages that you need.
Email address: kellewi@aces.edu
Phone number: 937-7176 or 943-5611, 928-0860, ext. 2222
Issued in furtherance of Cooperative Extension work in agriculture and home economics, Acts of May 8 and June 30, 1914, and other related acts, in cooperation with the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The Alabama Cooperative Extension System (Alabama A&M University and Auburn University) offers educational programs, materials, and equal opportunity employment to all people without regard to race, color, national origin, religion, sex, age, veteran status, or disability.
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