Growers make nutrient management decisions all season long. This includes the period just before and after harvest, when they need to decide whether a fall dry fertilizer application makes sense.

Growers who do decide to make a fall application face a significant challenge when it comes to dry fertilizer efficiency. This is because applied phosphorus and potassium fertilizers can be easily tied up by the soil chemistry. Even with the best program, only an estimated 10-30% of applied phosphorus and 20-60% of applied potassium will be available to their crop in the spring. This level of inefficiency is not good for the grower or the crop.  

One way growers can better ensure that they are getting more out of the nutrition they apply is by treating their dry fertilizer with Titan XC, a biocatalyst technology that is specifically formulated to increase nutrient availability from dry fertilizers. This can have a positive impact on a grower’s yield, as seen in the summary of corn, soybean and wheat trials from 2010-2019 below.

As manager of the Loveland Research Farm in Owensboro, Kentucky, Tim Sickman is well acquainted with the benefits of applying Titan XC on dry fertilizer. One of the trials that nicely highlights the advantages of Titan XC on dry fertilizer was conducted by his group during the 2015 and 2016 growing seasons in corn and soybean.

"In 2015, we initiated a study in corn on a site that already had a very respectable P and K soil test level," he says. "We took 150 lbs of a 9-23-30 fertilizer blend. In one of the treatments, we impregnated the 9-23-30 with the standard rate of Titan XC of 1 pint per ton of fertilizer. In the other treatment, we simply left that 150 lbs of 9-23-30 untreated."

Tim and his group then monitored the growth and development of the corn throughout the growing season, and harvested at the end of the year.

"When we ran the plot combine, what we saw was an 18 bushel per acre yield increase where Titan XC had been used on the dry fertilizer versus where we had not used the Titan XC," he says.

In the fall of 2017, Benjamin Rice, a crop consultant for Nutrien Ag Solutions in Sidney, Illinois, was faced with a challenge. 

He typically recommended Titan XC to his grower customers as a treatment for applied dry phosphorus and potassium fertilizers to help increase yield and profitability. Making the case for using this fertilizer biocatalyst was easy with growers who were blanket spreading dry fertilizers, but demonstrating the value of Titan XC was more complicated with a customer who used variable rate (VRT) applied fertilizer and did not want to pay more for the Titan XC technology. Benjamin needed to figure out a way to prove that Titan XC could have a nutrient efficiency and yield benefit when used with his customer's VRT fertilizer.

Nutrien Ag Solutions’ Gregg Schmitz has witnessed transformational changes in agriculture–from the birth of modern crop protection to the growth of today's market for ag biostimulants and biologicals, even leading some of the early, pivotal field trials that brought Accomplish technology to Nutrien's row crop customers.

We recently spoke with Gregg about his take on this biocatalyst technology, and why growers who aren't already using Accomplish LM, Titan XC or Extract will want to consider adopting this biochemistry in their fields in 2020.

Cover crops provide many benefits that can improve the health of soil, water, and the following crop. However, they can also pose some drawbacks. In the spring at planting, cover crop skeletons can interfere with seed to soil contact. They can also stress the seedling by interfering with access to sunlight, requiring the planted crop to stretch so that it can reach above the cover crop canopy.

Extract PBA provides an efficient way to manage cover crop skeletons so that growers can avoid these issues and give the coming crop a nutritional boost. These Nutrien Ag Solutions trials conducted in Ohio show how an application of Extract PBA can break down cover crop skeletons to release nutrients for the following crop. 

Results from cotton, corn and soybean trials conducted in North Carolina and Virginia show how Titan XC can optimize yield potential by enhancing the availability of applied P&K within an annual cropping cycle.

In cotton, treating dry fertilizer with Titan XC led to a yield increase of 328 lbs of lint/acre compared to untreated fertilizer, for a return on investment of over $203/acre for the grower.

Growers who spread dry fertilizer on corn fields going to soybeans may want to consider the results of this Titan XC trial from Cozad, Nebraska. In a test plot, treating dry fertilizer with Titan XC provided a 14 bushel/acre yield advantage in soybeans compared to the soybean plots where untreated fertilizer was applied.

Extract PBA has been making a big difference in soybean trials being conducted by Nutrien Ag Solutions Palmyra at a farm just outside of Monroe City, Missouri. Extract PBA was applied in the fall of 2016 at 1 gallon per acre on corn stalks, along with 2 gallons per acre of UAN. Soybeans were planted on May 18, 2017, and all pictures were taken approximately two months later, on July 26, 2017.

The photos show that soybeans from the Extract-treated part of the field have longer primary roots, larger leaves and stems, and more nodes and nodules compared to soybeans from the untreated parts of the field. 

Scott Lay recently spoke to Hoosier Ag Today about Extract PBA and how it can help maximize soybean yield potential when used with a pre-emerge herbicide or fertilizer application this spring. 

Hoosier Ag Today: Extract is a biocatalyst that helps make nutrients in the soil available to crops. Scott Lay from Loveland Products explains. 

Lay: Really what Extract does is frees up or mineralizes nutrients that are already bound in the soil. It helps to decompose residue, which is essentially nutrients awaiting to be utilized by the plant. It simply accelerates that process that Mother Nature is already performing, by helping to decompose and mineralize more nutrients, putting them in a plant available form so that we can maximize yield in a given crop.

One of the key ways to positively impact soybean and corn yields is by optimizing nutrient availability to the growing crop throughout the season. A number of trials conducted across the Midwest show that an application of Extract PBA is an effective and consistent way to achieve this.

By helping to mineralize soil nutrients more effectively and getting more nutrition into soybean and corn crops, Extract PBA can enhance crop vigor and yields, as seen in the soybean and corn trials shown below.