As growers continue making crop input decisions for the 2026 season, fertilizer return on investment remains one of the biggest priorities, especially on rented acres.
Keith Byerly with Mosaic says growers want confidence that every dollar spent on crop nutrition returns value in the same crop year, rather than relying on benefits that may stretch into future seasons. That concern is especially important for rented ground, where producers may not know from year to year if they will farm the same acres again.
Byerly says that focus is pushing more conversations toward nutrient use efficiency, making sure the crop can access as much of every applied pound of fertilizer as possible.
He says Mosaic’s approach increasingly includes biological crop nutrition tools designed to improve nutrient availability in the soil and around the root zone. The goal is to give growers more confidence that fertility investments are translating into plant uptake and same year return.
Byerly says one of the challenges is helping growers better understand the biology happening below ground, particularly in the rhizosphere, where roots and soil microbes interact, but the process is difficult to see in real time.
He says that is why education remains a major part of the conversation, helping growers understand how biological products can fit into long-term fertility strategies while still delivering immediate value.
As crop budgets remain tight, Byerly says tools that improve nutrient access and increase same-year ROI may continue gaining attention across the countryside.
