By Peter C. Scharf
I’ve written articles about nitrogen prices going through the roof in past years. This year they’ve blasted through a new roof and are heading for Mars.
The fact is that, despite skyrocketing nitrogen prices, there’s more money than ever before to be made from good nitrogen management. The graph shows profitability of different nitrogen rates for corn at 2002 prices and at current prices. Data in this graph are from 30 on-farm nitrogen rate studies from all across Missouri.
The most profitable N rate in 2002 (for these 30 fields, if the same rate had to be applied in every field) was about 140 lb N/acre. It’s dropped a little since then, but not much. The return to N has nearly doubled because of the high value of the corn grain production that it stimulates.
Even though high N prices do not mean that you should slash N rates, they do mean that carefully cutting N rates in places where it won’t reduce yield will pay more than ever before. Profitability goes down fast now when N is overapplied. The value of crediting soybean, clover, alfalfa, and manure N is higher than it’s ever been.
Peter C. Scharf
ScharfP@missouri.edu
