Today’s high-performing crops demand more nutrients than ever before, especially during the mid- to late-vegetative growth stages, when the plants seem to shoot up overnight. This period of rapid growth is called the Crop Sprint and it is crucial for maximizing yield potential.
During the Crop Sprint, plants take up nutrients more rapidly than any other phase of development. In fact, crops can use up to 60% of available nutrients during this time frame as plants grow new leaves, expand, and prep for pollination and grain fill.
The Crop Sprint is important for building the infrastructure the plant needs to support grain fill and reach its full yield potential later on in the season. While it’s easy to see that the plants are growing new leaves to carry out photosynthesis during the Crop Sprint, the plants are also developing reproductive potential unable to be seen by the naked eye. In corn, for example, this is the time frame that the young ear shoots are developing and the number of kernals are determined. This reproductive potential specifically is one of the reasons why the Crop Sprint is a vital phase of plant growth and development.
Fueling up to win the Crop Sprint
Maximizing success during the Crop Sprint means ensuring the crop has access to the nutrients it needs to fuel its rapid growth and development ahead of pollination and grain fill. By winning the Crop Sprint, you’ll be better poised to reach your yield goals and maximize your return on fertilizer investment (ROFI) as well. All it takes is making sure the crop has access to the nutrients it needs when it needs them.
During the Crop Sprint, crops need abundant nitrogen, potash, potassium and sulfur to ensure productivity. Enhanced efficiency fertilizers, like MicroEssentials® are designed to reduce nutrient losses to the environment and improve nutrient availability to plants, compared to conventional fertilizers. Through its patented Fusion technology, MicroEssentials specifically supplies nitrogen, phosphorous, sulfur and zinc in one nutritionally balanced granule — for uniform nutrient distribution, greater nutrient uptake and season-long sulfur availability.
Nutrient use efficiency, including availablility uptake and utilization, is also a major factor in ensuring crops have what they need to win the Crop Sprint. Adding a Bio Crop Nutrition product like BioPath® or PowerCoat™ to fertilizer applications makes critical nutrients more available for plants to take up throughout the season, but especially during the Crop Sprint.
This combination of enhanced efficiency fertilizer and biologicals, also known as advanced crop nutrition, is fuel your crops need for a successful Crop Sprint. Enhanced efficiency fertilizers ensure crops have the nutrients they need to the full key period of growth, like the Crop Sprint, while biologicals work with soil biology to improve nutrient availability, uptake and utilization for a greater ROFI. Ultimately, winning the Crop Sprint will help you achieve your yield goals.
