European Fertiliser Blenders Association
There is increasing interest in measuring and improving ‘soil health’, a collective term for evaluating soil fertility, organic matter, structure and biological activity.
The drivers behind this initiative include an awareness of the need to better manage soils to increase productivity and an interest in carbon sequestration to mitigate climate change.
While many farmers are adopting nutrient management planning, there is a need to take a more integrated approach rather than managing soils, nutrients and manures in separate silos.
There is increasing interest in moving from ‘standard analyses’ to more detailed, broad-spectrum nutrient analyses, not just for soils but also manures, in-season plant tissue and harvested crops.
Generating this data will help understanding of how best to manage nutrients from all sources to optimise productivity and minimise environmental impact.
This real-life scenario illustrates the practical connection between integrated analyses and putting together a prescription fertiliser for a specific crop and field.
Broad-spectrum soil sample results showed a 16ha field of carrots required nine different nutrients to be applied together in a single base dressing, range from 200kg/ha of sodium to 210g/ha of boron.
The prescription fertiliser analysis below is determined by using the available raw materials to create a formulation that will match the precise amount of each nutrient requirement in the table above when applied at a specified rate – in this case 1,145 kg/ha.
| Kilograms per Hectare (kg/ha) | Grams per Hectare (g/ha) | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| N | P2O5 | K2O | SO3 | MgO | Na2O | B | Cu | Zn | ||
| 70 | 30 | 180 | 80 | 40 | 200 | 210 | 325 | 375 | ||
| Nutrient Analysis % by Weight | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| N | P2O5 | K2O | SO3 | MgO | Na2O | B | Cu | Zn |
| 6.1 | 2.6 | 15.7 | 7.0 | 3.5 | 17.5 | 0.0018 | 0.0284 | 0.0328 |