Fall 2026 Fertilizer Management Considerations

John Jones: 00:00

Well, you for your time and attention today. What we'd like to deliver is, maybe a different format than we usually have have put together a fall and spring fertilizer webinar for the Illinois Fertilizer and Chemical Association. What we have is a panel today of of experts and practitioners that have some information that we can kind of guide it through a discussion around planning for fall fertilizer management decisions, go through some research information that leads us to to maybe find some specific BMPs for fertilizer management, but really talk about some case studies, real world experience around this specific topic. I'll move to the other panelists and go through a quick introduction.

Dan Schaefer: 00:40

Dan Schaefer, director of nutrient stewardship for Illinois Fertilizer and Chemical Association.

Nick Paulson: 00:46

I'm Nick Paulson, professor in, agricultural economist and member of the farm doc team at the University of Illinois.

Eric Miller: 00:53

And I am Eric Miller, a farmer from Piatt County, Illinois.

John Jones: 00:57

So as we've kind of moved through, the the decisions around what we're doing right now. We've got totes of wheat seed in Eric's shed sitting here, fall dry fertilizer application equipment behind us and he's itching probably to get back into the combine cab. One of the things we wanted to hit on was specifically things that that come to mind right now in terms of the the management decisions that you would make relative to fertilizer applications this fall. But certainly putting that in the context of the conditions that we're dealing with right now. If we think about soil moisture and temperature conditions to this this date on September 24, we're certainly maybe in a little different scenario than we were the past few years where dry fall conditions have really persisted.

John Jones: 01:42

If we think about soil temperature... Excuse me, soil sampling conditions and fall fertilizer application conditions in a physical sense, there certainly has been maybe a shift towards dry fall occurrences. This year we'll have a little more consistent soil moisture that's been delivered. And so I I think some of the situational decisions may change a little bit relative to things like soil sampling and dry fertilizer application. One of the things that as we kind of talk about specifically nitrogen and then P and K decisions as well is wanting to make sure that we're putting this in the context of place based research.

John Jones: 02:15

And wanting to make sure that we share kind of the broad scoping footprint that we have across some of the research trials that we've been doing around the state. So a lot of the information that we'll share is related to these large on farm networks that are really trying to deliver place based information and research. But today we're going to also be putting that in the context of Eric and Dan's soil and farms that that they've been operating and working with for decades. Certainly when we think about the current conditions and trends of... We'll specifically look at soil temperature as we're dealing with fall fertilizer applications.

John Jones: 02:52

There there are some averages that we can pull out to say certain days of of the month of October for example, that usually we're hitting 50 degree soil temperature marks at the top four inch depth. Usually that's a threshold that we're targeting for to apply specifically anhydrous ammonia after that time. We've tried to decrease at that point a susceptibility of ammonium to be transformed into nitrate and potentially lost in the fall or spring seasons. And even though... So you can see on on the screen we have three kind of scenarios moving from north to south throughout the state.

John Jones: 03:25

And these are trends over the past, we'll say ten years that are showing dates when the soil temperature is starting to hit and then trend below 50 degrees. Currently, if you look in the middle of the screen, the soil temperature map from a few days ago, and we can see that we're well above that 50 degree mark. And there's usually sometimes a a little disparity between when you'll see harvest, harvest running really at at full throttle and then anhydrous maybe being put out in the fall. And so that's something to consider. The time disparities between when harvest may finish up and an application isn't really necessarily a calendar date that's going to determine that.

John Jones: 04:01

We really wanna focus on what's going on within the soil specifically that you're gonna be managing. And that kind of leads us to, I'll say, our first discussion point. And that's if we look at trends over time and specifically what we wanna pay attention to relative to soil temperature, specifically wanting to target specific temperature thresholds that we want to apply nitrogen after. That's something that may be changing over time. And that's something that I think we'll kind of throw out to the panel for our first discussion of when you're considering and we'll kind of move through, I think we'll go Dan, Eric, and then Nick here.

John Jones: 04:38

We'll talk about how maybe your experience has been trying to manage nitrogen application timing in the fall systems or fall scenarios. What what conditions you're looking at relative to soil temperature, maybe moisture, and even just balancing logistics of getting fertilizer on the fall. So Dan, maybe we can take it from your experience working in these systems.

Dan Schaefer: 04:58

So in the last ten years, we've seen a change in the dynamics of when we put on fall nitrogen it seems to be moving a little bit later and if you take a look at at some of the research work that NREC has funded that we're finding that in the soil testing we may start seeing quite a bit of nitrate in by the first to the middle part of December. And last year was a... An example of a warm fall that continued on into December and when we have that the you know the guidelines tell us to wait until we have a 50 degree soil temperature at the four inch level and trending downward and if you look at the graphs from last year we were up and down to most of November and some of the October applied nitrogen was almost completely nitrate probably by the time we hit that March 1 time frame and when that happens in our tile drain fields we have a loss of nitrate through the tiles and and that can end up in Lake Decatur or Lake Springfield or somewhere and then they have to remove it. So it's it's important to follow the guidelines even if it means we don't get the fall application on.

Dan Schaefer: 06:18

Now that being said logistically for our area we need to get nitrogen applied because we can't handle it all probably in the spring. Now if we get a good spring there's no problem, but if we have a late spring then we kind of get boxed up with transportation and all that kind of stuff. And that's that's where you know we look at it and we found with NREC guided and funded research from the Douglas County site since 2013 that fall is a leakier system even with an inhibitor and it's kind of raised the question of you know should we be splitting more nitrogen and should we be getting more of our nitrogen If we're wanting efficient use of the nitrogen we're applying, we probably need to move more to spring.

Eric Miller: 07:18

So Dan, at the Douglas site, what happened when we used, say, 50% rates of anhydrous in the fall?

Dan Schaefer: 07:28

So the 100% rate of fall nitrogen was the highest loss and when we split the rate it was the second highest loss. So it was a little bit, but it was a step in the right direction.

Eric Miller: 07:42

But it wasn't a 50% reduction in loss?

Dan Schaefer: 07:45

No. Yeah. No. Anytime you apply nitrogen in the fall, you're gonna have, most years, an increased amount of loss. Yeah.

Eric Miller: 07:55

John, you had mentioned something that I think is really important from the farmer's perspective, and that is when is harvest full throttle and when are fields harvested? And I feel like when we're having these dry falls, harvest goes smoothly, and then it becomes a how much discipline do I have to wait for 50 and going down, and that's a challenge. And then a lot of it, I think, also depends on what's the forecast at the end of October or beginning of November. If it looks like it's gonna be a wet forecast, that 50 degree may get pushed to 55 degrees and hopefully trending down. So that's that's a challenge to maintain that discipline.

Eric Miller: 08:40

If you don't have a fallback for how you're gonna get your nitrogen applied and it's fall anhydrous, that's where the challenge is. If you have... If you're comfortable with spring anhydrous applications, if you have the ability to put some on at planting time, certainly side dress. Those are your plans, you know, b, c, and d, to consider.

Nick Paulson: 09:01

Yeah. I mean, from the... I guess from the pure economic side. I also grew up on a farm in Southern Minnesota and so like this kind of discussion is is sort of different up there. It's almost like you apply the amount of foliohydrates you can before it gets too cold.

Nick Paulson: 09:17

And you you know, you get into Christmas basically sometimes before harvest is over and so a little bit different here in Central Illinois. But yeah, I think discipline and sort of adapting and and kind of calling audibles on the fly within your farm management plan is something that farmers just have to deal with and it is a balancing act and you know it's a it's a farm management, it's a risk management decision as to whether you can... How long you can delay and what that means for what your spring plan is gonna look like.

John Jones: 09:47

And one of the things I I think has been... We have a paper that's about to be out and published from NREC funded research that's comparing fall anhydrous applications and spring anhydrous applications looking at optimum rates when 100% of the nitrogen was applied in the fall or the spring. And and generally what we found is a range of about 16 to 20 pounds per acre lower optimum end rate with spring applied anhydrous ammonia. Ammonia. Now there is not a change...

John Jones: 10:16

A large change in yield within that that optimal end rate. So if we're supplying enough fertilizer in, the yields aren't necessarily being shifted as much. And it's really site specific, drainage specific as well. Mentioning things like conditions in Southern Minnesota compared to here, certainly we're both dealing in tile drained landscapes. But then you've gone into different scenarios in the fall relative to soil temperature and field logistics as well.

John Jones: 10:42

Something that's been consistent enough maybe has been the difference between fall and spring as a 100% total N rate applied. But when you start to get into, as Dan mentioned, split applications where maybe it's a 100 pound base rate applied in the fall or spring in as anhydrous things are then getting putting on with a planter or side dress rig. That's when you and what we've seen from really over a decade of nitrogen rate or excuse me, nitrogen timing research, when you start to play with fall application timings or splits, there's a little more forgiveness in the yield response to those options. And so I think maybe what we can take away from even if it's a shift to different timings or applications or components within the spring that there's flexibility. That our yield response to those timings will say is maybe inconsistent enough that there may not be large differences.

John Jones: 11:33

But the fall to spring change is probably where we see the most consistent change likely just because of the bulk amount of environment that that nitrogen is going to face more often than not in the fall. So if we kind of think about ways that we can then make decisions whether it's in the fall or spring, a lot of what we focus on relative to nitrogen rate guidelines for Illinois is the total nitrogen rate that's applied. And that data is supported by a large network of on farm trials that's run we're running our lab is running around 75 to 100 on farm trials a year to feed into our database that sits on the core nitrogen rate calculator. And essentially what we want to look at again is is a focus on that website of total N. So when we're kind of going through different applications of whether it's fertilizer N specifically, pre plant broadcast herbicide that might have some N in it, pea fertilizers as well.

John Jones: 12:31

We want to take into account or run a budget of the N going into the system. And that's what we consider on the website. Certainly something that has been true over time has been the we'll say lack of relationship between the yield at the optimum N rate and the optimum N rate itself. Largely driven by just the difference in the amount of N the soil is going to provide at a given site. And that's been consistent through over two decades of trials that Dan was really involved when for the lion's share of that time and supporting those guidelines and interpretations.

John Jones: 13:09

One thing that it's kind of important to think about is the focus on profit or return to nitrogen maximizing N rates really doesn't need to mean a sacrifice in bushels compared to we'll say chasing the highest yield. In fact across over 800 of our research trials around the state, the difference between the max bushels that we could produce at a given trial in a given soil in a specific, site specific location around the state is generally only about 1.3 bushels below or excuse me, lower when we focus on a profit maximizing end rate. The difference really when we start to look at how the economic return to end would shake out would be that 10 to 18, sometimes 24 pounds of end lower amount of nitrogen that would be needed to reach that yield. And that's certainly been the case. If we even look at different bins of crop yield, there isn't necessarily a shift of these higher yielding sites are requiring more nitrogen.

John Jones: 14:15

More often than not, there's quite a few of those research trial sites that require very low optimum end rates because they are such productive soils. And I think when we you know, a lot of the times start to make management decisions of what happened last year. Let's let's start with that and then maybe consider what what the economic scenarios are going into last year... Into this year. We certainly get into a point where we see these trends that are pretty consistent over time as we move to different regions of the state and crop rotations.

John Jones: 14:45

One thing I'll note that's shown up in the research is maybe a narrowing of the gap between optimum end rates for corn fouling soybean compared to corn fouling corn. Last year, I think I got about 18 emails in January after we put out the guideline information of the two crop rotations. And that that gap wasn't 50... Our expected 50 pounds of N difference. We've got a long term...

John Jones: 15:09

A paper coming out of long term research at Monmouth comparing those rotations and it's saying the same thing at that probably because our yield increases over time is out with corn fall and soybean is just outpacing our corn fall and corn crops. And so the end demand is is becoming a little bit larger per crop per year so to speak for corn fowl and soybeans and corn fowl and corn probably just because of the yield limitation as well. A good pivot point from talking about optimum nitrogen rates and on farm research to supply that information because it is a very data hungry machine to interpret nitrogen fertilizer demand across a large geography of diverse systems like Illinois, I think is the on farm research experience itself. Eric, you've been involved in running on farm research trials for over ten years now in 2026 looking at optimum nitrogen rates. When you kind of evaluate that experience, what are your takeaways?

John Jones: 16:11

Are you changing management because of your experience in research? You certainly have a very hands on role to play in this research. But I'm interested in hearing your your thoughts on seeing kind of behind the curtain in this system. How would you change your management and and end management decision frameworks?

Eric Miller: 16:30

Great questions. So we were always probably trying to be efficient, with our N rates on the farm. We were not chasing bushels. We understood the economics of those extra pounds. We've been doing N rate trials.

Eric Miller: 16:45

We started in 2015, so we have done over 20 NRATE trials. We do two every year, one in a corn soybean rotation and one in a corn soy wheat double crop rotation. To get right to the chase, if we take all of those N rate trials and look at the MRTN, we're at about 171 or 172 pounds of N, is where we're most efficient economically. For my fellow producers, I would say, I have... You're gonna have to trust me on this.

Eric Miller: 17:22

So in our N rate trials, we have six N rates from zero pounds to 250 pounds in 50 pound increments. The 250 pound rate always looks the best by a lot. And, Dan, how many times have we said, I think this year, that high rate is is really gonna outyield the 150 pound rate or the 200 pound rate, and it doesn't do it. It's much more vegetative plant, and apparently that energy goes to leaves and stalks, and it can't transfer it into grain production. I don't know the numbers off the top of my head, but many times, the two fifty rate is not the highest yielding rate, as well.

Eric Miller: 18:06

I can tell which one of my fellow farmers is putting on 240 or 50 pounds of van by looking at it, but, yeah, trust me. Run run trials on your own farm. Drop that rate down to to the m... MRTN. Do the replications.

Eric Miller: 18:21

Do the randomization. And I I believe you'll save a lot of money next year and the year after that and the year after that. And if you're saving $20 an acre on a thousand acres and you do it for a decade, that's that's real money.

Nick Paulson: 18:38

Yeah. And I think, John, we've talked a little bit about this. I think I think there's maybe maybe it's healthy skepticism about the results that farmers might might see from research trials and maybe I can understand that a little bit when we're talking about small research plots done at the university or on university sites. But then you hear Eric's experience with doing things in a in a real farm situation. And I would also add that you know, we we track other, sorts of data related to nutrient management, and Precision Conservation Management is is one example and and the results there are very similar.

Nick Paulson: 19:12

We look at different bins or ranges of application rates and and we tend to see one that MRTN plays out as being the most profitable in in those again real farm situations that aren't aren't research trials, it's it's actual application rates and not that research trials aren't actual application rates, but these are these aren't these aren't set up as research trials, the farmers are choosing what rate they think is is the best. And as you increase that and and look at some of the rates exceeding the MRTN, you know, it's it's one or two bushels and and again they're not paying for that extra nitrogen and so we're seeing this in, from multiple sources here.

Eric Miller: 19:55

You know, I'm gonna add too. So the slides of the hundreds of MRTN that you have, they show that flat line year after year after year, almost regardless of what the weather conditions are. So again, you know, I I know it's tempting to have... To... We're a visual society.

Eric Miller: 20:15

Appearance must mean greater yield, and that's just not the case.

John Jones: 20:21

Maybe we can kind of pivot to the idea of when you change one component of your farming system. Likely there's other knobs or dials or levers that also need to be changed. Eric, can you talk a little bit about incorporation of reduced tillage systems, cover crops, wheat in your rotation? How how did you think about specifically nitrogen because we're on that topic? But how did you think about your nitrogen management decisions as maybe because of just experimental interest or research that was done on your farm you decided to add a different component to your system or change a component?

Eric Miller: 20:59

So you're talking about adding wheat or just the management of nitrogen in that three crop rotation?

John Jones: 21:05

I would say add... As you've moved, we can kind of knock them down the line. As you move to a strip till system, how did you think about nutrient application? Maybe it was placement within that context.

Eric Miller: 21:17

Okay. So we do, strip till ahead of our corn crop, and then we are no till, soybean in our corn soy rotation, and then we are no till soybean and wheat and double crop soybeans in our three crop rotation. So since we just put on... Since we just stripped till once every three years ahead of our corn crop, that's when we were banding our P and K. And we like that because we feel that for the wheat crop and for the full season soybean crop, we are broadcasting P and K.

Eric Miller: 21:53

There's our surface application. When we strip till, we're applying it six or seven or eight inches deep. So we we feel like we're getting a little little better relief from the stratification that we can get from just constant broadcast. So that... That's from the the P and K side.

Eric Miller: 22:11

On the nitrogen component of it, adding wheat is is beneficial to us because, you know, you're out there putting the in on, the wheat crop in February and March onto an actively growing crop. So we do not experience a whole lot of loss there. And again, this is a surface UAN application with with the stabilizer. On our... On the corn component of it, we put on, 50 pounds of N at planting time and a 130 pounds as a side dress application.

Eric Miller: 22:42

So that is a big management change for a lot of people. Certainly, the planter time and with high speed planters and the ability to cover so many acres so quickly, that's kind of a logistical challenge for some producers to consider. But we like what we see with that system is both yield and reduction in nitrate loss, so we're we're sticking with it.

Dan Schaefer: 23:08

One of the things that we did change, after we started the the conservation here at Eric's farm with the strip till and the and the higher residue crops was did increase that nitrogen amount at planting time to offset immobilization from that weed stubble. So we went from a 20 to 30 pound rate to 50 to sometimes 60 pounds and that that seems to get that crop off to a really healthy start and I think it's I think it's important and we've seen I've seen it in other research plots where without it the corn isn't quite as vigorous early on especially on the early planted stuff and sometimes that amounts to maybe a wetter product in the fall compared to other parts of the field that did get that planter time 32% so I think that that's an important part of that. The one thing I'll say about strip till is I wish twenty years ago we would have brought that out as a tillage tool only and not worried about the fertilizer incorporation with it or the waiting until we could put fall nitrogen on because that that steered some people away from it because it's basically a way to till about 10 or 12 inches versus full width tillage and I think that's where the benefit comes from the the strip till bar.

John Jones: 24:29

I would say that from my experience with specifically phosphorus and potassium placement research relative to strip till deep banding, planter banded applications. That treatment that there's no fertilizer applied but we're still running a strip till rig through the system, it does have a yield response compared to some of our other other tillage systems and a benefit. So there certainly is a tillage component response to consider besides fertility itself. One of the things that... That's kind of interesting, and there's some some data on the slide to show this, is...

John Jones: 25:02

And what you'll see is the optimum nitrogen rates that were observed at Eric's farm from 2015 to 2025. 26 crop will be taken out within a few weeks here. But what you can see is the presence of things like previous crop and tillage system over time. Interestingly, and this is a ten year data set and we use a ten year data set that is live within the core nitrogen rate calculator to keep guidelines fresh so to speak. When we add a new year into the database, we drop an older year out.

John Jones: 25:36

We felt that ten years really represents enough change, but enough stability within hybrid changes, cropping system changes, even things like we talked about a little bit earlier in fall soil temperature shifts over time. Interestingly, your E. ONR is going down over time Eric. What would you attribute that to if that trend continues or not? 2026 may be a different year as we've seen in our research plots taken out so far.

John Jones: 26:05

And I think Dan confirmed it was a very end response of year this year. But would you attribute any change in management to a slight decline over time in economic optimum end rates?

Eric Miller: 26:16

That question is too hard. Any speculation would be just that. It's okay to say, I don't know if anything we're doing is causing that or if it's just happening because it's happening. Not the answer that you wanna hear, but I'm glad we have that slide. That's the real world stuff.

Eric Miller: 26:37

We rarely have an MRTN above 200 pounds of total land. It's only happened a handful of times. So again, I remind my fellow producers, if you're putting on more than 200 pounds, you're probably getting past the economics and just getting into the yield chase, the extra bushels at that point. And this is important. It's not overly interesting.

Eric Miller: 27:00

People don't get excited about that. But these are plots that are field scale. These are not small plots. These are not two rows by 40 feet long that we're doing this in. I'd mentioned it's the six N rates.

Eric Miller: 27:13

It's the three random replications of those six rates, and then we repeat that three times, or a total of three times. So this is statistically significant stuff. And maybe this will be the message that I harp on today. But there aren't drastic yield decreases from reducing your N rates to an MRTN. We've never seen it.

Eric Miller: 27:42

It just doesn't happen. I get producers telling me, well, we tried reducing our N rate, or I heard that people were reducing their N rate and they had a 30 bushel yield loss on their corn. We haven't seen it in 20 N rate trials, and you had mentioned, both of you have mentioned what you have seen. How often have you seen that as well? It it just hardly ever occurs.

John Jones: 28:07

And I can tell you we've we've done some analysis to evaluate. If we would have applied a given base rate, what were the chances we would have got it right? And interestingly enough, if we look at just Central Illinois, the region that covers where your farm is at within the guideline interpretations. A 166 pound base end rate about 40 to 50% of the time is that's the probability that it got it within plus or minus 14 pounds on either side of the optimum end rate. And so there there are some chances or or probabilities you can throw on of whether you got it right or not.

John Jones: 28:44

I think the... What we can kind of start to move to and think about is directionally shifting and management decisions one way or another. And that's where there's within the trial program that we've looked at six rates replicated across on farm scenarios. There's also been trials run and Dan you've been involved with them looking at just the MRTN rate plus or minus 50 pounds. And in fact you just harvested one today.

John Jones: 29:11

Could you tell us a little bit about your experience with those and what you've been seeing?

Dan Schaefer: 29:15

So the one we did today was a 144, 184, and a two twenty four rates and it was replicated six times I think across that field because it was a research where we had a tile drainage underneath it also and actually we were within 10 bushel the acre of the high rate two twenty four and the low rate of 144 there's only 10 bushel spread between those and if you go back and I know what I paid for 32% in anhydrous last spring and that 10 bushel didn't recover that cost. Now if you if you prepaid earlier or something you might have got the cost per in per pound of in down and maybe that did did pay for itself a little bit but the middle rate I had to leave the field before they got got a couple of those done it's gonna be right on the right on the same line and basically as the £224 rate so it's as we do these across the state and I would encourage everybody to do one of these I mean they're really simple to do and save yourself you know 20 to $30 an acre maybe $40 an acre depending on where these prices go on nitrogen.

Nick Paulson: 30:38

Well, I think there's like even marginal additional costs that I don't think go directly into the MRTN calculation because you talked about, you know you're maybe not getting more bushels but the crop looks better there's more vegetation. Well that's that's more going through the combine and having you know I mean it's more wear and tear I mean and that stuff is like marginal maybe we're talking like 1 to $2 an acre instead of 20 but you know that adds up what that adds up as well so.

Dan Schaefer: 31:04

The other thing I I saw on while I was out in the combine was that the 144 pound in rate was a percent drier than the high end rate. So and so that may shave a little bit off that 10 bushel too, and that was at 18% moisture approximately.

Eric Miller: 31:23

So that is a great point, Dan. We see that in our N rate trials all the time. The zero N rates, obviously, they could be several points, three to four points drier. So if you start thinking of one point of moisture removal on 240 bushels of corn, that's several dollars an acre, as well.

John Jones: 31:46

Dan, you mentioned pulling out research... Harvesting research trials from sites where there's water quality monitoring going on. And certainly that's going on in your farm, Eric. What you can see on the screen there, Lowell Gentry has published quite a bit of great research from a few sites around Central Illinois. But specifically comparing the three crop rotation compared to a two crop rotation and looking at just the amount of nitrate specifically lost from those cropping systems.

John Jones: 32:17

It's interesting to see that even though these changes are slight within the systems, the two crop rotation ended up having a slightly higher economic optimum end rate compared to the three crop rotation. Not not much of a difference when you look at all all of the years combined. But certainly there are water quality benefits to that that showed pretty consistently. And I think with Lowell's research, there's been a pretty strong and consistent message of the improvement of reductions of nitrate, nitrogen loss specifically within that system. So your optimum end rates may be trending downward to a certain extent, certainly not a shift per se in yields at those optimum end rates.

John Jones: 33:00

But he reported about a 50% reduction in tile nature concentration from those two systems. So there certainly are other tangible things that we can measure within these cropping system adjustments that are important. And they start with decisions that are being made right now. Certainly when we think about the effects of other components of the systems changing, we've got some large, large long term studies that were started in the fall of twenty twenty four comparing things like cropping... Crop rotation or previous crop and tillage system as well.

John Jones: 33:34

And you can see that in large part we do not see this this necessarily shift because of tillage system with optimum nitrogen rates. And this is the first year that these those trials were incorporated. And so there's a little bit of a shift when we go to the first year of no till following, we'll say a pretty heavy fall chisel spring field cultivator system. But that's one thing we're tracking over time. Many other states have looked at this evaluating of if there's no till credits or soil end cycling credits to a reduced till system.

John Jones: 34:06

And that's something that we can certainly answer with an on farm system a little bit better than even just looking at small plots to a certain extent. So I think as we we wrap up the nitrogen component, maybe talk about some other fertilizer dynamics relative to fall decisions. As economic scenarios maybe shift in he and haw a little bit. Nick, when you're you're going into this this season, whether it's cropping crop price changes or fertilizer changes or consistency. What are some major things that that you're telling producers that are key key things to think about right now and then planning for the '27 crop?

Nick Paulson: 34:43

I mean I think since you know, the 2023 crop year, you know, the the main focus has been concerns over high production costs. And so I don't think there's ever been a stronger economic argument for you know seriously taking a look at application rates utilizing tools that are available to to make adjustments to find that $10.15, $20 an acre in savings that's gonna translate to improvements in profit margins. And so you know, again just reiterate some of the things that Eric is proving to himself with the research he's doing on his farm. Everything that we see in the data is that you know ultimately you're not giving up yield and the yield that you are giving up is is not paying for itself at some of the higher rates that we're seeing above those MRTNs. You know the timing timing challenges, management shift challenges.

Nick Paulson: 35:40

I'd actually like to ask Eric a follow-up on that. Like how many crop years did it take for the new system to feel like the normal system? If that makes sense.

Eric Miller: 35:51

It does make sense. Great question. I'm gonna go with six years in that three crop rotation. By the time you get to the third, phase of it, not the third phase of it, but you've you've done all three of those crops twice. The third...

Eric Miller: 36:05

Three is a charm, I guess, is is what I would say system.

John Jones: 36:12

As as we kind of move in into fall and application season, Dan, I'm curious on your experience. There's there's certainly a play here for using nitrification inhibitors to attempt to delay conversion of nitrate to or excuse me of ammonium to nitrate. When we're dealing with maybe seasonal fluctuations that's predictable more often, how would you think about making that decision of inhibitor, the inhibitor is is something that's going to delay me enough to get to that that point when maybe we're we're below 50 degrees and trending? Or how would how would you consider and I think guess really for Dan and Eric both of you, how do you consider whether it's the the term enhanced efficiency fertilizers or other components relative to the base fertilizer that you may want to try to try to accommodate what you may change in logistics of applications?

Dan Schaefer: 37:10

So definitely the inhibitors, the nitrication inhibitors, they help but you're you're putting a lot of pressure on them when you're putting on fall ammonia and you know last week or maybe a little bit sooner than that in October and then by the time you get into December January you've used up your insurance policy it's it's now you know your nitrogen in in the nitrate form so if you if you delay that until you've got the 50 degrees and trending downward then your inhibitors are going to last longer into the spring I can't remember the exact numbers but the weather station here at Eric's Farm we had pretty heavy rains in in April. May wasn't too bad in June we had like six or maybe eight or nine inches of rain here and and so all that plays into it what the weather is gonna be but you know by starting early you're using up that insurance policy which is a nitrification inhibitor that you're gonna stay in the, you know, the ammonium in the ammonium form rather than converting to nitrate. And the worst thing to do is, like I saw last year, we had October, fall ammonia put on and we had 50% of the nitrogen before Christmas was in the nitrate form even with an inhibitor.

Eric Miller: 38:28

I think one thing that I have learned is, from the farmer perspective, you're told that you're using a nitrification inhibitor. And you can very easily, loosely take that to mean, well, it's doing you know, the heavy lifting. It's keeping that, ammonia in the ammonia form. It's not turning it into nitrate. It's not a 100%.

Eric Miller: 38:54

It's not a foolproof product. Dan is is correct. The most important thing is that soil temperature. And the second most important thing, other than the just 50 degree, is trending down. It has got to be trending down.

Eric Miller: 39:11

And, we get these wild swings in our weather. It happens from month to month to month, and it's just not uncommon anymore to to have a week of weather in December when it's 65 or 70 degree temperatures. And that, like Dan said, that puts too much stress on that inhibitor, which is not a foolproof product to begin with.

Dan Schaefer: 39:36

I've been in this business basically since 1973 and have watched the inhibitors come in and we also had in the agronomy handbook when we first started with fall nitrogen was to put 40 pounds more in on because you were gonna lose some and that was we knew that and we've always known that and when I was going through the earlier years we had cold temperatures you know we get you get we start free ground start freezing you know late in October and into November and we were a little bit like in Minnesota we were hustling to try to get some of that done before the ground would start freezing but over the last you know we're more like Southern Illinois now than than we've ever been and I'm a goose hunter and I don't go down to Marion anymore because the geese aren't down there they're up here they're staying they're staying further north the other indication is just how cold our winters are and and our cold temperatures don't really come in until the last couple years we had some really cold temperatures the end of January and and part of February so that change affects the fall nitrogen and that conversion and the earlier we go the more we're gonna use up that that inhibitor and and not have it for the spring, rainy season.

Nick Paulson: 40:55

I really like Dan's characterization of inhibitors as an insurance policy and specifically comparing that to the the old insurance of just applying more anhydrous in the fall because I'm very familiar with that approach to, insurance when it comes to nitrogen and we don't want inhibitors to be iron clad, like they need to at some point allow it to convert to nitrate otherwise we're applying something for no reason, right? So you know, I think it's a really good way to think about it is like you you kind of buy yourself a window but you can use that window up and then you know, still see a lot of losses in the spring if if conditions are warrant that. So

Dan Schaefer: 41:36

we've been looking at a enhanced deficiency fertilizer source for the last three years and this year I decided instead and compared to fall anhydrous it in the fall and fall anhydrous we moved some of the trials to spring side dress an hydrous and that product was used in the fall. The response curve that John did was an eye opener because we lost quite a bit of nitrogen from the enhanced efficiency fertilizer versus the spring applied side dress anhydrous I think there was a 10 or 15 bushel an acre difference in what that result was over over the response curve and I think the the side dress even a wet spring I I think there was nine inches of rain in June the spring anhydrous is applied in middle of May the side dress was and then we got nine inches of rain on on that and the maximum return to nitrogen for the side dress anhydrous was two zero eight or something like that and I think the and the other product was two fifty pounds of N to maximize a yield that was lower than the side dress anhydrous. So no matter what we try to do in the fall to make things work better for us, sometimes the best option is simply to put some on ahead of planning maybe and then side dress.

Dan Schaefer: 43:07

I never like to go side dress only. I always like to have that plant to really be... Have nitrogen with it as it's starting to grow.

John Jones: 43:17

And we certainly see those those years where, to Eric's point earlier that 250 pounds did not reach the maximum bushels that were attained. In 2026 when when harvesting plots now, this may be one of the years where 250 pounds was not enough to to maximize yield in some scenarios. Often that's attributed to large nitrogen loss events. And certainly those can be supported with the amount of June rain we had, just the length of saturated conditions. But also we have to think about how well the conditions are allowing crops to root down well.

John Jones: 43:53

The crop to get to a developmental stage where we're kind of synchronizing that soil and fertilizer and availability and what the crop is needing when it's pulling up five, six, seven pounds of N per acre per day. And so I think one of the things to take away from this kind of discussion of whether it's end timings, product selected, enhanced efficiency fertilizers to be used. The purpose is for them to be used in tandem with good agron agronomics. Where we're thinking about what's going on with that given year. And in fact, when we've done things like pull apart the nitrogen rate calculator database and we've said, well, what years are more similar to this year?

John Jones: 44:31

And we start to filter them out and try predict more accurately what we would expect to come in the following year, we certainly can get a little more higher chance of probability of getting it right. And that makes sense if we're trying to interpret the same conditions that we want to use to predict something. I think there's a benefit there. One of the things that I think is important when we kind of move towards... Maybe we'll move away from the nitrogen specifically focus over to things like phosphorus and potassium is the...

John Jones: 45:00

And we touched on this earlier, just the available options and flexibility of application timings to a certain extent as well. If, you know, right now especially phosphorus fertilizer prices are at the top of mind, whether it's related to sulfur components or the P products themselves or phosphoric acid themselves. But one thing that we've seen in research is that there's flexibility within your rotation to get the P specifically on. And K is we've seen the same way. In fact, in long term research where we've looked at applying annually, biennially, P only to the corn, P only to the soybeans or vice versa, we really haven't seen a difference.

John Jones: 45:41

We just need to get that dry fertilizer on some point in the rotation. It... And it's an interesting point right now because of decisions of to pull the trigger or not relative to dry fertilizer. And so I think if we we kind of maybe sit there for a second and take into context, Eric and Dan making dry fertilizer decisions in the fall. Is it something what's going through your mind when you're thinking about to pull that trigger or not to wait to a different point in the rotation or not?

John Jones: 46:12

What are things that you might want to consider?

Dan Schaefer: 46:15

We... Or I definitely consider those soil test data. So I soil test every four years in the spring and and follow that. And if I need some lime, I've... It's corrected.

Dan Schaefer: 46:25

If I'm low on phosphorus in some of the areas I'll use VRT to correct that. And my K levels are generally fairly high. I am not going to spend additional dollars to maintain a 50 or 60 pound per acre P test when I know that I can get by with with what I've got with maybe a maintenance or less than maintenance and sometimes none at all especially when you go to the go with the VRT if you're just fixing the low areas, you know, there's some areas you're not gonna put any on and I don't I think that's just a good agronomic practice.

Eric Miller: 47:08

So we try to build when those products are cheap, and we try to cut back or not apply when those products are expensive. So our triple superphosphate price is $895 a ton. So if we have, and we have a bunch of them, soil tests, like Dan said, of certainly 50 pounds and greater, that acre doesn't need any phosphorus. And I guess our farm average maybe for a P test is 70 pounds per acre. So we don't apply when the price is high.

Eric Miller: 47:47

And also, we don't panic in wet falls, thinking we've gotta these applications because we know we've got enough out there to go two or three years without any yield reduction easily, you know, as as your slides show.

Dan Schaefer: 48:01

And Eric mentioned using Triple Super, and he does use that on this farm because there's a lot of water quality data being generated from all the NREC research that's going on. And also we don't want to lose that, lose the nitrogen component through the course of winter. So that's why we are using a triple super here. And also there's when you have an N rate trial and some of the other trials around here, you don't want that additional nitrogen have to account for it within the research part of what we do.

Eric Miller: 48:32

So on the potash side of it, we're probably... Do we average? 400 pounds or better. So same same as the as the phosphorus. Those at...

Eric Miller: 48:44

Those levels are adequate, for one, two, three, four years. So if prices are high, we don't need to spend the money. If the fall is wet and we have a challenge getting it on, we don't need to do it. We don't need to panic. We do try to be really consistent, obviously, since we only strip till once every three years to get P and K on, regardless of what the soil test levels are in that environment, again, because we're trying to to, you know, make that P and K profile in the soil a little bit wider than just constant broadcast applications.

John Jones: 49:20

And that's something that's in terms of the soil test interpretation that we've got supported by new NREC projects that are updating the specifically phosphorus and potassium guidelines that generally once we start to get to 18 parts per million, 36 pounds per acre of of pea, we're not seeing yield responses above that. And in fact, between about 15 to 21 parts per million or again 30 to 42 pounds per acre, that's really probably an ideal maintenance range. And I think one of the things to to make sure is that there's... We can we can put likelihood of responses within these interpretation classes. And the idea for a maintenance range is not necessarily to be getting a response to P.

John Jones: 50:03

We're managing soil test levels at that time. So it's certainly a different philosophy than if you have a new farm, you found a lot of low testing points and you want to build those up. Certainly, I think Eric your point about playing playing the market and understanding when you can maintain or build and when you can realistically draw down quite a bit. That's really where over long term research we've identified that maintaining those optimum categories allows you to do that. You can draw down for probably a complete rotation in many cases.

John Jones: 50:36

And then you try to avoid scenarios like 2022 or right now when pea fertilizer is so expensive that if you were in a requirement to build scenario, it would really be tough to validate that.

Eric Miller: 50:49

That's a great point. You put that very well. I would probably say when it comes to P and K as well, those move together in price with commodity prices. So, you know, when you talk about buying those those products, p and k, you do need to look at the per bushel price of corn and soybean a little bit because, generally, they follow each other. But I don't know.

Eric Miller: 51:17

It just feels better. I would rather have corn be $4 and pea be $650 as opposed to $5 at 900. I think that math works out better for me.

Nick Paulson: 51:29

Well, I I was actually curious what what is a what is a, maybe not cheap, but reasonable DAP MAP or TSP price because I feel like they've just been sneakily going up like we talk about nitrogen and there's more volatility in that with more direct connection to energy markets, but you know and and phosphates have been up more this year for a variety of reasons, but you know, they've been kind of sneaking back up pretty consistently in the last few years. So I don't know, maybe maybe we'll never see a cheap phosphate price again, I don't know.

John Jones: 52:00

One of the things that that we've kind of tracked over time too is the difference between interpreting a rate decision versus what's a what's a good soil test to target for. And largely we... If we look at scenarios of consistent grain prices changing pea fertilizer or or the opposite where fertilizer is static and grain prices changes, the soil test interpretation really doesn't change much. A few PPM shift or our drift up and down, but that annual rate decision is where I think we can make a big change. And it really comes down to thinking of maybe a longer term context versus an annual ROI.

John Jones: 52:39

One of the things that we're incorporating in some of the new research projects and the interpretation of those is thinking about what are the annual ROI optimizing rates regardless of soil test levels. And I would strongly suggest that growers when making those decisions, even though they're a P and K application is a long term investment so to speak or or a multi year investment. Focus on annual ROIs as well because that certainly is something that can that can be important part of that scenario. Maybe we can we can touch a little bit on when you get a soil test interpret... Or a soil test report, Eric, and we reviewed some of yours.

John Jones: 53:18

What are the things your eyes go to first?

Eric Miller: 53:21

The easiest one is pH. So, I was telling Dan this story here. I was on a couple of meetings, webinars with a, gentleman that generally does very good in the corn growers, National Corn Growers Association yield contest. And he was having people that were, attending this webinar send in their soil tests, and, he was gonna evaluate them. And there was one gentleman, one farmer, who, you know, really wanted to grow 300, 350 bushel an acre corn, and he had a pH of 5.6 or something like that, terribly low.

Eric Miller: 53:58

So, of course, the high yield grower said, get your pH up to 6.7 or 6.8, and then come back to me and start asking questions. So, certainly, that's always the the basic one to start out with. Makes those fertilizers more available you're in that mid to upper six, range on, on your on your pH. Organic matter should not change, but it does over time. We've talked about that as well.

Eric Miller: 54:31

That's a... You've gotta have decades of of soil tests to see that, but you always wanna look at organic matter. That's probably the most important thing you can have, to judge the quality of your soil. You know, there's a lot of talk about base saturations. What should I be?

Eric Miller: 54:47

What percentages should I be? But it's it's always the basics, isn't it, guys, that we need to have have that pH correct? We need to to at least have those minimums, per the university recommendations in p and k. And I will say I believe those minimums. I think people will say they're too low, but I I do believe those those are accurate.

Eric Miller: 55:10

So those would be the basics that I look at on a soil test.

John Jones: 55:14

And certainly you mentioned base saturation and as we do more potassium research specifically, and potassium is kind of a nutrient that as a scientist gives me the most headaches because it's it's hard to track down in terms of a a soil test, a a consistent soil test that's going to provide maybe as clear of interpretation sometimes on the pea side, although both can both can provide challenges. One of the things we have looked at recently is base saturation. And if we can use that to determine potassium rates. Because more often than not, if you get a soil test report, there's going to be a base saturation or a calcium, magnesium, sodium, potassium saturation value. Those are just calculated from your soil test interpretations.

John Jones: 55:55

But the questions certainly come about if you can use those for K recommendation. So far what we've seen in Illinois research and this really matches what's been done in Ohio and Iowa and Minnesota is that you really cannot make a clear interpretation for potassium recommendations from that if you're aggregating data across very diverse soils. So one of the slides that that you'll see is the relationship between soil test potassium and the percentage of maximum yield or really yield response to K fertilizer. You can kind of see that there's a shaded area on the left figure that's showing a critical range or an optimum range of soil test potassium in parts per million. We can't really interpret that very well for base saturation potassium.

John Jones: 56:39

And really what that comes down to is it's about... It's kind of a moving goalpost. Right? So where you've got CEC levels of maybe 18, 20, 24 on some of your soils depending on your topography and where you're at in the fields. That's that's a very different amount of potassium to get to a target base saturation than if you're 150 miles south of here, if you're over by the Illinois River dealing with fairly coarse textured soils.

John Jones: 57:05

And so that's why what you see on the screen is that there's a very different relationship between the amount of soil test potassium to chase a base saturation K level depending on what soil you're in. If you are making a decision based on that, I really always recommend you almost need a data set for your own farm. Maybe that's where the on farm research components can come in. But in in general, we do see much more consistency interpreting soil test potassium and PPM and pounds per acre than base saturation as well. So I'll hit on maybe the the final point because again, you do have a few totes of wheat seed in the shed here Eric.

John Jones: 57:41

And that is fertility management for winter wheat going into into the season when we've got acres being planted already. I know we're starting research trials planting next week around the state. We have a large project funded by NREC to update nitrogen, phosphorus and sulfur, wheat, winter wheat, so fertility management within our project. And we've had a site now, this will be the third year on your farm. What we've evaluated so far and seen is maybe a little higher optimum end rates than what I'll say that the handbook has right now relative to your soil organic matter levels.

John Jones: 58:17

But we have to also remember that the yields are over double what they were when those those interpretations were made. And that's where we've got a project that's had 11 sites last year. We've got 17 sites this year on the state evaluating N sulfur and NP management. And generally when we've seen kind of regions of the state kind of break out into interpretations of optimum end rates given given soils, given regions of the state. Where we're dealing within in this region specifically anywhere last year from around almost down to 55 up to a 103 pounds of end for optimum end rates.

John Jones: 58:57

Yields are maybe a little bit lower depending on your your planting dates in certain sites around the state. But in general, one of the things that we're wanting to evaluate is our specific wheat wheat fertility requirements that that we can try to match the yield levels that we're at. Can you talk a little bit about what your process is like for wheat fertility management decisions right now?

Eric Miller: 59:19

So because we do on farm research, we don't have a lot of flexibility in what we can do, for N rates. When I started raising wheat, I knew nothing about raising wheat, so I had to, take advice from people that grew wheat. And the the majority said, well, wheat needs a little bit of N in the fall, 30 or, 30 pounds or so. So we do put on, 30 pounds of N, with our MAP or DAP product that we're using. And we put on a little bit of sulfur as well and a little bit of potash.

Eric Miller: 59:53

And then, we are a liquid, spring liquid, applications. We do two of those. We put on a 100 pounds total of n with those, liquid applications, and we split those. Those. One generally just after green up, and the second one about a month later.

Eric Miller: 01:00:15

A 100 pounds total in the spring. Depending on the growth from the fall, it may be 40 pounds the first application. If we've had a tough fall and we need more tillering, it may be 50 or 60 pounds on that first one. And then the second one, like I said, about a week later.

John Jones: 01:00:32

One of the things that we did see last year was it was... And I think this was true for our wheat crops coming out of 2025, but also the corn crops this year. They were very end responsive. So you can always kind of look at especially if you have in... Now we're lucky in research areas where there was no fall applied to the wheat crops.

John Jones: 01:00:50

They're kind of a nice indicator of what the end mineralization status is coming out of the spring to see what's purely just soil and supply or organic soil and that's going to be supplied to the crops. And we did see some fairly high optimum end rates. Specifically if you kind of moved along I-seventy and down the amount of of end loss events that we expected. And we saw late February into March probably led to some of those higher optimum end rates. But it wasn't certainly the case that things were shifting necessarily that much from a system that you're mentioning now.

John Jones: 01:01:26

One of the things that we are evaluating is how we can use soil testing and tissue testing to try to hone those N rates to a certain extent. But certainly the case is going to be that it's a it's a give and take of what we can manage within a two or maybe three pass system depending on what you're getting out there. Something that I think is important to bring up on the phosphorus side is that if we do have crop rotations with wheat, we sort of have a limiting crop within the rotation. Wheat does have a higher optimum soil test P level than corn and soybeans. And we saw that last year where the optimum soil test pea level was around 28 to 36 parts per million of pea compared to our lower critical levels that we just talked about for corn and soybeans.

John Jones: 01:02:09

So certainly when we think about one crop maybe shifting management for the whole rotation, that might be a good example of that.

Eric Miller: 01:02:16

So John, I've got a quick question for you. So what is your opinion? Do you have an opinion yet of that 30 pounds of N? I need to get that N out ahead of my wheat planting in the fall.

John Jones: 01:02:29

We've actually been seeing that that fall in depending on... There's a caveat and that's probably background soil organic matter and available N in the fall. If you're coming out of a soybean crop and you've got around 1.5 to 2% organic matter or higher, we actually don't see any difference if you apply the fall in or not. In soils that maybe they're, you know, past the terminal rain into Southern Illinois where you have you're kind of in that 1.2 to 1.7% organic matter and depending on planting date because that dictates so much of the amount of fall tillering and potential yield. Then we start to see that effect of the fall and really play more of a positive role.

Nick Paulson: 01:03:14

Okay.

John Jones: 01:03:15

So it's really not shifting optimum end rates that much. So the total end rate I think is something that we also have to think about. Not just spring and... But we really need to think about total end rate. We...

John Jones: 01:03:26

On these high organic matter soils though, if there's enough residual N hanging around and wheat is really good at scavenging residual N, the fall N may or may not play much of a role. But the total N is something that we've looked at and is certainly important. So Eric, to answer your question relative to the fall end having an effect on yield or optimum end rates, usually in our moderate to higher organic matter soils. So we're getting closer to 2% or higher. We actually aren't seeing that fall in lead to any really expressed higher tillering and higher yields come harvest time.

John Jones: 01:04:03

To your point about corn, does the wheat look greener and when it greens up if there's fall in? You bet it does. And in fact, we include treatments of 160 pounds of N in the fall as again, a way to calibrate specifically sensors and plant tissue analysis to say how much potentially was lost. And that wheat always looks the best. However, what often happens because we don't afterwards, it falls short in terms of yield because right when that plant is really going through stem elongation, flag leaf rolls in, it just doesn't have enough end to really take that wheat home.

John Jones: 01:04:38

And so that's been a big challenge there. But we have such an interesting temporal, response to nitrogen. The 30 pounds that I would not apply, in the fall, does that get transferred or a

Eric Miller: 01:04:52

portion of that get transferred to the spring?

John Jones: 01:04:55

Yes. So that's why we talked about total nitrogen. So there's there is that that importance of looking at the total N rates really aren't changing that much. So the question really comes down to is did you have enough fall and to get adequate tillering done? And in many cases this decision isn't maybe as as complicated as we're making it.

John Jones: 01:05:16

Because if you have to get that pea fertilizer out there and you're using some ammoniated pea product, you're probably getting anywhere from 20 to 30 pounds of N with that pea fertilizer product anyway.

Eric Miller: 01:05:26

We're spending a lot of time talking about wheat, but there are, you know, more and more people attempting to to raise wheat after corn. So what's the fall recommendation there for n if corn was the preceding crop?

John Jones: 01:05:40

We have a few sites that we had last year looking at wheat following corn. We have more sites following soybeans. And this year, we're trying to get a little more of a balance. More often than not and it depends on how much n was hanging around after the corn crop. The the challenge there I would say is and that this is a point where maybe the fall in is a little more important because your your planting date may be altered if you're following corn, especially if you're coming out after a late crop.

John Jones: 01:06:08

And so with planting date dictating so much about yield potential, you really can't sacrifice tillering potential in the fall before dormancy. And so then then the end may be a little bit more important. That being said, we can see some higher residual end hanging around after corn crops too. And so it's really going to be a balance and that's where we're looking at at plant soil nitrate tests for wheat to say how well did we do coming into dormancy. And I think there may be some as we get more data and more sites into the the research project itself.

John Jones: 01:06:39

Hopefully we can interpret some of that. So as as we move through kind of some of these questions that we've talked about, we do have a lot of on farm research efforts that are going into updating our understanding of all these topics. Specifically the MRTN trials that are being run around the state that are on farm trials. We are looking at a new project that's evaluating variable rate P and K management. Also liming to a certain extent as well.

John Jones: 01:07:07

And then as we just talked, do have on farm wheat and double crop soybean research going on. If you're interested in any of those projects, whether it's information from data that's already been collected or collaborating going forward, we try to make the process as painless as possible. And you can scan the QR code and send us some information if you've got questions regarding that. The... I think what I'd like to wrap up with is just an idea that right now, you know, certainly we talked about input fertilizer...

John Jones: 01:07:38

Input prices specifically relative to what we're dealing with in decisions made right now. But going into the 2027 crop, I think this will be something that hopefully we can make these decisions in an informed way that don't put farmers in a tight spot when maybe things need to be made in a more rapid timeline in the spring. Nick, how do you make that balance of whether to pull triggers on things now or adjust adjust input decisions now compared to waiting two or three months?

Nick Paulson: 01:08:12

Yeah, mean I think there I think there is a temptation especially now with you know, nitrogen has come down from some of the highs we saw in the summer. Phosphate prices just seem to keep stable or move up when we in the sources that we track. And I think there is a temptation to say you know, you know, maybe this is the year where we shift more of our of our plan to the spring. Again, I think the the the most bang for the buck, which is I guess a pun from an economist, is to look at rates and to to adjust those if you're not at the MRTN go down to that. But you know timing is another thing that we've seen you know beyond the the agronomic research that that you do John, is we do see improved returns if there's kind of a portfolio approach to application timing.

Nick Paulson: 01:09:07

And again, it's it's it's kind of it's a form of insurance. You know, you're you're kind of you're putting in some on on in the fall. There's some there's some price diversification potentially through time that I think will benefit most operations, but then also some diversification in terms of the conditions you're facing and the losses that you might experience based on what happens with temperatures and precipitation between fall and once we get into spring planting. And just the the timing flexibility that you know you can buy yourself to by by not putting too many too many eggs in the fall or the spring basket is is another I think important consideration for farmers.

John Jones: 01:09:47

Well we want to thank you for your time and attention today. Appreciate you three for for joining me here and having a discussion. We're looking forward to having some more of these spring and fall fertilizer webinars with with IFCA with some alternative formats that we can have these kind of open discussions about these topics. So we certainly always always welcome some ideas of of how we can bring this this research information to you specifically. And, and certainly always welcome responses as well.

John Jones: 01:10:16

So we thank you for your time and and appreciate your attention today.

Nick Paulson: 01:10:21

Can I ask another maintenance P and K question? Sure. You can cut it in or not if you want. But I'm curious and and I don't know if Eric's got more crop years of experience and that's the easiest way to know the answer to this or if it's the data that John has access to on the research side. But I think one concern that we hear is one, farmers think the maintenance levels are too low.

Nick Paulson: 01:10:44

But the other one is that you know, if you kind of get behind that, it's gonna cost more in the future to get get back into that maintenance range. And I sort of get that like I think of Aaron Hager, his his argument he's kind of admonished me and Gary for telling farmers to pull back on expenses and he's thinking of it from the herbicide and weed pressure side of things and things can get out of control and it is gonna cost you more in the future then to take care of a problem. But I'm just curious if there's any evidence of that from the P

John Jones: 01:11:15

and K maintenance standpoint. Evidence that if you allowed things to drop that it would cost more.

Nick Paulson: 01:11:21

Yeah. Does it is it does it take that much more to get back into that maintenance zone?

John Jones: 01:11:25

So one of the important parts that underpins all of our interpretations for soil test levels relative to build and drawdown is the amount of p two zero five you apply or remove that changes your soil test levels, say one part per million or one pound per acre. That's treated as a static book value. So it's it's nine depending on the state eight pounds of of pea to change your soil test level, one one pound of pea and four to six k depending on on again what state you're in. What we found in research and this is kind of an interesting part is that that number varies widely. And you may expect it to.

John Jones: 01:12:08

Soils respond differently to fertilizer applied and removal harvested essentially. So what we've actually done from the research and this will kind of started to be brought up more this winter when we discuss changes to the agronomy handbook will be a more adaptive coefficient to apply nutrients that will affect the soil test levels or an adaptive build and drawdown coefficients. So... And the reason being is if you're starting on a five ppm phosphorus soil, it's gonna take more p to saturate that soil to build soil test levels. Because you have to pay the reaper, I like to say.

John Jones: 01:12:48

The reaper is organic matter, cation exchange sites, all the sticky components of soil that will hold on to nutrients and not let plants use them. Now, if you're building from 15 part per million to 20 part per million, it requires less to do so because you've already overcome that inertia of building up soil nutrient concentrations. So it's not just a linear increase from zero to 20, but it's more of a curvilinear change in the amount of nutrients needed. What also we found is that P and K although we treat them the same, they actually have almost contrasting build up and drawdown coefficients. And I think it's what farmers complain about.

John Jones: 01:13:32

It matches what the science says. So that's kind of a good thing. I hear a lot of times I can't build soil test K to what it's supposed to be. Now Eric's dealing with some very high native K soils in this scenario, but I hear that a lot. Now on the scenarios where farmers are being pressured to reduce soil test P because of water quality or maybe manure management constraints, it's we can't draw down P as fast as we're told we're supposed to.

John Jones: 01:13:58

And we see that in the kinetics of nutrients of it's easier to draw down K, harder to build it up and it's kind of flipped for P. And I think it's more, there's more complexity to what happens to fertilizer when we put it in the soil. And then it becomes truly a soil nutrient after that. And then where are nutrients coming that crops take up? Those are two different sources and destinations so to speak or or starting and ending points of of how nutrients travel in the soil.

John Jones: 01:14:28

And so that's an important part. A long answer to get to the point that it's easier to maintain soil test levels than it is to do this yo yo draw down a lot build up a lot. And I think over a ten year time span you would spend less money on fertilizer living in an optimum range and maintaining instead of letting them draw down let's say 15 part per million P and then having to build back up. If you can just kind of reduce that swing, I think you'll... You've also then you've ensured that you don't have yield sacrifice for that scenario.

John Jones: 01:15:05

Because one of the things that although we talk about trying to maximize annual ROI regardless of what soil test level you're at, we found there is a yield ceiling even at low soil test fertilize soil test levels. So the idea that you can fertilize your way out of any soil test level in a given year isn't really holding true. There... And I think it's because there's in all these environmental conditions. So this year there were massive flashes of of potassium deficiency in South Central Illinois and soybeans.

John Jones: 01:15:35

Now those were low soil testing. So low K testing soils in many cases, but they also had a really dry two month time span. There were some compaction issues in some of the field. And so you let the soil test levels maybe draw down too far, but then the environmental conditions just made it worse. So you couldn't survive them so to speak.

John Jones: 01:15:56

You see, we see that in research all the time. And the... This is an idea that you need to be having high testing soils to withstand those those availability challenges. Just optimum is enough.