According to Michael Green of Wawota, Sask., farmers are caught in an information trap when it comes to fertilizer supplements and endless promises of increased yield.
“How do you determine which data you should listen to?” asked Green. “Scientist A says this and scientist B says it’s a bunch of b.s. And we’re caught in the middle.”
To find out who and what to believe, Green attended a session titled Fertilizer Products: Possibilities and Impossibilities at Manitoba Ag Days in Brandon Jan. 22.
Rigas Karamanos, an agronomy manager with Viterra in Calgary, told Green and the rest of the audience that supplements like wetting agents and plant growth regulators can be helpful.
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But, he noted, farmers should be wary of marketing hype.
“Be very careful of products … that make claims that you’ll get five to 10 percent more yield,” said Karamanos, an adjunct professor of soil science at the University of Manitoba.
To explain that comment, Karamanos said it’s important to distinguish between two types of claims, which he called Type A and Type B.
A Type A claim, he said, is when a fertilizer supplement vendor says its product will boost yield by five to 10 percent.
The Type B claim is when the vendor says its supplement will produce the same yield but with less nutrient inputs.
The simple rule for farmers, Karamanos said, is that Type B is possible and Type A is impossible.
The reason farmers should be skeptical of pamphlets touting more yield from supplements, he said, is that yield is determined by four factors – crop genetics, solar radiation, water and nutrients.
Everything else, he said, is just hype.
“When you get to the maximum yield with best management practices … you will find that it is very difficult to push the yield potential (higher),” Karamanos said, noting that claims of more yield are often based on an inadequate number of field trials.
“It is extremely important when you are studying one factor, everything else has to be at optimum …. That’s a challenge because we live in the real environment. That’s why doing a one year, one site experiment is not enough.”
Karamanos’s comments did provide some clarity for Green, who raises cattle and farms 1,000 acres of cropland in southeastern Saskatchewan.
But he wondered why the federal government doesn’t crack down on fertilizer supplement hyperbole.
“There’s a lot of dollars involved here. Surely there should be some public money in place to protect the public from being scammed,” said Green.
According to Javier Maldonado, a fertilizer specialist with the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, the government does ensure that regulated fertilizer supplements are safe, efficacious and that label claims are accurate.
But, he added, the CFIA’s power has limitations.
“Our authority basically ends at the label on the product, or brochures that accompany the product,” said Maldonado, who spoke on the Fertilizers Act, following Karamanos’ presentation.
“But when it comes to advertising on TV or the radio, we don’t have any authority over that type of advertising.”
The CFIA does follow up on complaints from growers and it educates vendors on what is appropriate, Maldonado said.
Nonetheless, it is a grey area and the situation boils down to two words: buyer beware.
