With continuing economic pressures on commodity prices and the ongoing need to increase yield, maximizing nutrient efficiency is becoming an even more critical component. This is also an ongoing challenge for growers as they are typically looking at their current crop while already planning for the next season.

The key to healthy plant nutrition and optimum crop production is a balance of all the essential nutrients, which is obtained by managing fertility and nutrient availability factors like proper placement, targeted timings and appropriate use rates to ensure nutrient availability throughout the season. In order to maximize crop production, growers need to provide all key macro and micronutrients for their plants at the appropriate time they are needed.

Growers can’t do it alone and it’s crucial they get the most out of their fertilizer, and take a look at the positive return on their crop nutrient investment. This is also important for retailers, as they want to maintain profitability within their business, but also to look out for their grower customers’ best interests too. Even in times of lower commodity prices, crop fertility is very important to maintain optimum conditions for the crops, to maximize their yield potential.

Two Key Factors:

Phosphorus
The first focus to achieve nutrient efficiency is to effectively leverage the nutrients already present in the soil and in the fertilizer that you apply — specifically phosphorus. Phosphorus is a critical macronutrient with a huge impact on increasing yields, and includes an important energy-producing molecule found in all living cells called Adenosine Triphosphate (ATP). But unlike other nutrients, phosphorus has extremely limited soil mobility, and consistently gets tied up in the soil becoming unavailable for plant uptake.

A Full-Season Job

With increased understanding and knowledge of nutrient uptake, growers can now move beyond the common practice of fertilizing acres to a strategy where they are fertilizing plants. This strategy helps match a plant’s life cycle with in-furrow application for better emergence and makes sure that plants have the necessary nutrients available as needed.

Solution: New Chelate Technology

This is where an effective chelating agent is critical for growers. Chelates are not new and there have been several common types available for decades. Throughout the years there have been significant advances in chelate technology in addition to an understanding of how each chelate works and its impact.

A new chelate technology now available for growers is Levesol DFC – the only chelate that is strong enough and stable enough to remain in the soil for the length of time that allows for increased solubility and uptake and can be impregnated onto dry fertilizer. Levesol DFC has an extremely unique chemical structure that sets it apart from all other chelate products on the market, and provides a three-mode action plan to ensure nutrient efficiency throughout the entire season:

1. Unlocks the nutrients it’s applied with
2. Unlocks the nutrients in the soil – Levesol DFC unlocks essential nutrients and increases the availability of phosphorus by up to 47%
3. Unlocks the nutrients like phosphorus in the plant all season long adding more grain and increasing grower’s yields.

Contact us today to learn more about nutrient efficiencies.

Original Source: Leaders of In-Furrow Technology, West Central

The CHS Board has delayed implementation of the company’s new individual equity redemption program, a decision made following its regular review of the CHS equity management program.

“This decision was made as we considered a number of factors, including our commitment to balance sheet management and the current economic cycle,” says CHS Board Chairman Dave Bielenberg. “CHS remains financially sound and profitable, but as we navigate this economic cycle, the board believes this delay was appropriate as we continue to take a long-term view in managing equity redemptions.”

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The Fertilizer Institute (TFI) and its members (including CHS) will celebrate the first annual Global Fertilizer Day this coming Thursday, October 13. Organized by TFI and a network of international organizations, the day is dedicated to spreading the word about the vital role our industry plays in improving peoples’ lives. As Microsoft founder and philanthropist Bill Gates has said on numerous occasions, two out of every five people in the world owe their lives to fertilizer. (more…)