Improving Nitrogen Use Efficiency

by | Nov 22, 2023 | 5 Ag Stories

Continuing to improve!  One of the great things about Iowa Agriculture is we’re always looking at how we can do things better and we’re getting great help.  On Thanksgiving, we have a lot to be thankful for, including the companies who are helping us out like UPL on the sustainability side of things:

“Yeah. We’re going down that road as well, not just sustainability, but the stewardship of the land and stewardship of what the inputs are for the growers. So we’re looking at different in-furrow applications or follow up applications to make the plant more efficient as well as make the soil more efficient long term.  That allows sustainable growth for that grower and for future generations of farmers to come.”

Now, he says, they’re absolutely thrilled with the research and development that has taken place with a new nitrogen use efficiency product that’s going to be out in Iowa fields in just a few months:

We’re set to launch that hopefully this spring, get it out there in the hands of some growers and fully launch it this summer potentially too. We just have to wait on the regulatory issues and get those things taken care of.  As we bring that forward, it looks to be where we can bring nitrogen that’s applied to the soil more efficiently into the plant and the plant can store it to use when it needs it.  The analogy is of taking a a truck with a 24 gallon fuel tank and making a 32 or 34 gallon tank. We can bring it more in, store it in that plant so it can move it around when it needs it, rather than cannibalize that stock when it takes it. It actually allows the nitrogen to be mobile in the plant and move around.”

That would be a significant advance and another development we look forward to covering in the coming months.