MINNEAPOLIS, Minn. – Putting the right amount of fertilizer in the right place is only part of the battle.
Getting the timing right is also important.
Dan Froehlich, chief agronomist for Mosaic, says tissue testing may show growers how much of each nutrient the plant has taken in, but it doesn’t indicate whether each nutrient should have been available sooner or later in the growing season.
Froehlich said Mosaic’s work with state universities in the corn belt is studying more than just the quantity of those nutrients.
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“We’re trying to determine the timing. A corn plant has different nutrient requirements at different growth stages. Boron, for instance, should be released to the plant at pollination.
“Mosaic is trying to develop products with multiple nutrients. Some are immediate release. Some slow release. Others release later in the season when the plants need them.
“Our goal is to put down all the fertilizer in a single pass and have the various elements timed to release precisely when the plant needs them. We try to look at plant physiology from the plant’s point of view.”
Froehlich said the technology for timed release is not new. The challenge is to figure out exactly when each type of crop needs each nutrient. He said Mosaic is also extending this research into canola and soybeans.
“For example, ammonium sulfate is great and it’s relatively cheap, but it’s also pretty hard on the seed. So we’re looking at a fertilizer you can safely put down with the seed in the quantity you need, but not kill off your germ.
“Right now, we can put sulfur inside the granule. It’s not a polymer coating and it’s not a capsule. The sulfur is built into the center of the granule. We control the release … how soluble it is in water … in the manufacturing process.”
The product, which Mosaic calls Micro Essentials, delivers two forms of sulfur: half is sulfate, which is immediately available to the plant, and the other half is elemental sulfate, which becomes available later in the season. The Micro Essentials blend for canola and wheat is S15: 13-33-0-15S, while the blend for corn is SZ: 12-40-0-10S-1Zn.
Froehlich said the product provides a more consistent nutrient distribution than conventional- blended fertilizer products.
He said the company has tried a variety of time-release nutrients on different crops, looking for new combinations. It recently tried zinc on canola, and the positive response was a surprise.
“We got a five to six percent response from the time release sulfur in the granules. Then we got an additional three to four percent response with the addition of zinc.
“Zinc shows promise in Roundup Ready crops. Research at Waseca, Minnesota, shows that adding zinc can offset any potential manganese deficiency you might get with Roundup.
“We’ve started pursuing zinc on canola in Western Canada. We had a couple sites last year and eight or nine sites with contract researchers this year. I’ll have results by late October.”
Froehlich thinks the future of plant nutrition will depend on timed release products that let farmers put down only the amount of each nutrient required by the plant. Putting down “a little extra just in case we lose some” will become an obsolete practice.
It also means reducing the total volume of product going down, which will streamline the one pass seeding system.
Froehlich said K-Mag, a blend of potassium, magnesium and sulfur (21-22% K20, 10.5-11% Mg, 21-22% S), is another product that fits Mosaic’s view of the farm of the future.
The product’s sulfate form means the product is 100 percent water soluble, and all three nutrients are immediately available to the plant.
Mosaic said it does not change the soil pH, and the low chloride levels and low salt index reduce the risk of fertilizer burn.
