Got drought? Then be careful about your seed row-placed nitrogen.
Drought for many parts of the southern Prairies looks possible this spring. Lack of moisture last season led to poor yields in many areas south of the Trans-Canada Highway.
Ross McKenzie of Alberta Agriculture and the University of Lethbridge is reminding producers who place their nitrogen in the seed row to prevent seedling damage by cutting those rates by at least half or move to a protected or stabilized nitrogen product such as ESN or Agrotain.
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“This is a serious issue when it gets this dry. You can do a lot of damage,” he said.
No-tillage and direct seeding occurs on half of all seeded acres in Western Canada according to the 2006 Canadian Census of Agriculture. In Saskatchewan, it was 60 percent, while in Alberta it was 48. In many cases producers put at least a portion of their nitrogen in the direct seeded row and some apply most of it that way.
Both provinces have areas facing low moisture for spring planting this year.
Rigas Karamanos of fertilizer manufacturer Westco has been working on 27 site years of accumulated data from 20 different prairie Westco field trials in spring wheat and barley. He said cutting seed row nitrogen by half in a drought year isn’t meeting producers’ needs and may send the wrong messages to growers.
He said producers should consider their seedbed utilization rate, as well as the soil type when deciding how much fertilizer to apply with the seed.
He said liquids tend to be a safer product than urea prills.
“We’re developing a calculator, a seed row fertilizer application risk assessment tool, to assist us in understanding the issue,” he said.
“If you are sure it is going to rain immediately after seeding, then your issues aren’t as great. But if not, you should be working with an agrologist to get some recommendations. It might be better to work with an agrologist on this one rather than Mother Nature.”
Karamanos said producers can err on the side of caution because they can apply nitrogen later in the year or move to side or mid row banding to obtain safe rates.
