Chip: Ross Bender is the Director for New Product Development at the Mosaic Company. Ross, 2023 — a strong growing season for a lot of producers out there. With yield so good how does that influence how growers evaluate their fertilizer needs.
Ross: The yields were so strong they were actually record yields in some areas, and with record fields equate to record nutrient removal. And our job is to try to maintain the level of fertility of that field so it can retain its long term productivity. For every bushel of corn that is produced, it needs about one pound of phosphate fertilizer to replace that nutrition and about a half a pound of potash fertilizer. So record yields rapid nutrient removal equates to rapid nutritional decline in the soil if we’re not careful and replacing those nutrients.
Chip: Yeah, so what should growers look for in fertilizer to achieve that?
Ross: For managing crop nutrition, there are the four R’s right rate, right source, right time and right place, and the goal is to make sure that we have done nutrition available to our plants when they need it. My recommendation is to consider really good phosphate sources. Personally, I really like MicroEssentials. MicroEssentials is a phosphate innovation brought to the retailers by Mosaic, and it helps provide better to treat distribution helps keep nutrients available for longer, and that helps equate to better nutrient uptake and ultimately stronger yields. We see improvements in yield over DAP by about 8.8 bushels and yield improvements over map by about 7.2 bushels. It’s very strong technology science backed.
Chip: Fantastic. Ross, where can we go to learn more?
Ross:Visit cropnutrition.com. It’s a great resource to learn about anything new and evolving in the crop nutrition space and also to visit with your local retailer and certified crop advisor to build your plan for 2024.
Chip: Excellent, thank you Ross. That is Ross Bender, Director of New Product Development at the Mosaic Company.