Fertilizers in 2022 May Be the TP of 2020

I am sure that everyone is feeling the effects of rising prices and short-supply of some of our favorite Christmas gifts. These shortages and higher prices are affecting our farming communities just the same. The outlook for fertilizer this year, specifically nitrogen, is about the same as the toilet paper in 2020.

So what other options are there? Manure often gets overlooked as waste and not managed as a valuable nutrient. Adding manure into your farming system and using it as an alternative to other fertilizers such as nitrogen may be the key to a successful and profitable year in 2022. Although it can be difficult to determine exactly how much nitrogen you should be applying and accounting for practices such as manure application, cover crops, and tillage there are tools to help.

Ashland SWCD is offering Adapt-N, a nitrogen modeling tool, that gives you nitrogen recommendations based on the listed factors above for the 2022 season. In order to maximize your return on investment you must take into consideration selling prices, nutrient prices, and timing of your application to see how much your fertilizer application is affecting your yield. This can be done simply by using another great resource Ashland SWCD has to offer the Field Forecasting Tool. 

So what if you don’t have livestock? I encourage you to reach out to your neighbor, friend, friend of friend and see if they are willing to work with you to have access to manure. Many times, livestock producers are happy to supply manure to other surrounding fields.

Ashland SWCD is hosting a Conservation Chat in January that will provide insight from local agronomist to make the most of your fertilizer dollars, discuss opportunities to use crop modeling tools, and look at using manure as an alternative to commercial fertilizer in the 2022 season. The chat will be at the Ashland SWCD office located at 1763 State Route 60, Ashland and will require an RSVP to 419-281-7645 to receive FREE lunch. We hope to see you all there and look forward to a great New Year.