Over the past few years, we've posted several agriculture-related videos that showcase the efforts growers are making to implement new products and practices that help them improve ag productivity and sustainability. If you haven't yet seen them, here are a few of the most popular and most recent.

As growers deal with tight budgets and carefully evaluate all of their input costs, a simple dry fertilizer demonstration shows why Titan XC is important to any operation's bottom line.

Prepared by Nutrien Ag Solutions in Cecilia, Kentucky, these jar tests shows the value that Titan XC brings when applied to dry fertilizers. As you can see in the photos, Titan XC has accelerated the breakdown of fertilizer prill in the treated jars, translating into greater nutrient release and improved fertilizer efficiency in the field. All photos were taken after three weeks.

In this Kansas wheat trial, Titan XC provided a yield and ROI advantage when used with a banded dry fertilizer application.

Titan XC was applied at 1 pint per ton on MicroEssentials SZ (MESZ), which was placed in-furrow. Compared to the untreated MESZ, the Titan XC-treated MESZ raised wheat yields, with a 7 bu/a yield increase. With wheat prices estimated at $6.50/bu, the return on investment with Titan XC in this trial would be $43.62 per acre.

In a Dyna-Gro corn plot harvested near Cozad, Nebraska, treating MicroEssentials SZ (MESZ) fertilizer with Titan XC led to a 14.4 bushel per acre increase in corn yield compared to untreated MESZ. The corn was harvested on September 20, 2017.

For the past several years, Chris Perkins, a grower and Nutrien Ag Solutions location manager in Otwell, Indiana, has been running an experimental, high management, continuous corn plot using several products in the Loveland Products portfolio, including Accomplish LM and Titan, so that he can prove the value of the products he sells to his customers.

Many of the decisions that Chris makes in the management of his plot are driven by ongoing research at the university level, primarily that of Dr. Fred Below of the Crop Physiology Laboratory at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

In this field trial on corn, root digs show a more developed root system in plants fertilized with Titan XC-impregnated dry fertilizer compared to untreated dry fertilizer. The corn trial was conducted by Nutrien Ag Solutions in New Brunswick, Indiana. 

One of the main reasons growers use Titan XC is to speed the breakdown of dry fertilizer prills, which makes nutrients more quickly available for crop uptake. Loveland Products recently conducted a quick demonstration to quantify the rate of enhanced fertilizer breakdown with Titan XC. The results show that Titan XC does what it says.

The demo compared Titan XC-treated versus untreated 6-6-18 fertilizer. The starting weight of each of the 8 samples tested in this demo (4 untreated and 4 treated) was 15 grams. All samples were submerged in distilled water for 72 hours, then screened off and weighed.

In every case, more Titan XC-treated fertilizer was dissolved compared to untreated fertilizer. Overall, Titan XC increased fertilizer breakdown by an average of 32%.

Titan XC is now available from Loveland Products! Designed to improve dry fertilizer efficiency, Titan XC is a new, next-generation biocatalyst for dry fertilizers that ‘unlocks’ applied nutrients, making them available more quickly so that more of them are taken up by plant roots. It is extra concentrated for easier application and superior impregnation onto fertilizer prill.

Chris Perkins, a Nutrien Ag Solutions location manager in Otwell, Indiana, likes to practice what he preaches when it comes to the products he recommends to growers. If he’s not familiar with something, he tests it on his own family farm and carefully evaluates the data to make sure the product is living up to its claims.

“My dad lets me have 17 acres for a community plot where we’re doing corn on corn,” says Chris. “I want to show guys ‘Hey, this is what we’re doing, and this is what we’re seeing because of this product, management practice or hybrid.’”

Over the past few years, Chris has been evaluating Accomplish LM and Titan on his 17 acres, and he’s seen both his yields and his soil nutrient values rise. Along with the fertility added by the continuous corn, he credits the Accomplish and Titan technologies for contributing to a good portion of those increases.