Fertilizer decisions could be difficult this spring, given flooding and concerns with availability.
John Heard is a Crop Nutrition Specialist with Manitoba Agriculture.
"Our Made-in-Manitoba thumb rule on this is once the soil warmed up to five degrees, it's two to four pounds of nitrogen a day we can lose if we have standing water in those fields," he said. "If a farmer has planned or banked on all that nitrogen to be available, we've suggested it may be prudent to do some directed spring sampling in late April in some of those spots just to confirm that that nitrogen is still there."
Heard says there was a lot of fall soil sampling done, which is a signal that a good portion of fertilizer was wither purchased in the fall or taken delivery of, adding farmers have already made seeding plans based on nitrogen concentrations in their fields.
He had some advice for farmers planning to apply fertilizer this spring.
"Treat it with respect. Fertilizer prices, with what they are now...nutrient efficiency is paramount to get the most benefit per dollar worth of fertilizer. Farmers know this, banded fertilizer is more efficient. Some farmers may be looking at some split applications in order to stretch the efficiency of nutrients."
Heard stresses the importance putting seeding in the ground with phosphorus fertilizer.
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