While the price of nitrogen may be declining from the record highs of last year, the valuable nutrient is still more expensive than it has been in the past.
Nitrogen is critical to plant health and yield and provides the building blocks of plant protein.
Before creation of the Haber-Bosch process at the turn of the last century, most nitrogen fertilizer for crops was provided by manure.
Today synthetic nitrogen fertilizer represents about 80 percent of the nitrogen used in global crop production.
Carl Bosch patented an ability to create ammonia while working for BASF in 1910 and he and Fritz Haber received Nobel prizes for their work.
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Anhydrous ammonia is the basis for nearly all nitrogen fertilizer used in the world.
The nutrient’s cost is tied closely to energy prices because natural gas is the feedstock for ammonia production. It represents up to 90 percent of the cost of producing the fertilizer.
Researchers with Agriculture Canada and Nebraska and Oklahoma state universities suggest that as much as 50 percent of nitrogen that producers place into the soil fails to enter their crops. It is lost to the air, leached into ground water, washed into surface water or tied up in soil.
Some plants, such as legumes, can fix their own nitrogen from the air and leave residual nitrogen in the soil for subsequent crops. The air is 78 percent nitrogen.
It is estimated that 30 million kilograms of nitrogen are floating above each acre of land.
However, nitrogen fixing plants are the only efficient means of sequestering it for crop use.
Researchers are developing cereals and oilseeds that can also pull this nitrogen from the air, supplying at least some of the crops’ needs.
New products such as alfalfa pellets are being used to replace traditional synthetic products.
