Farmers Could Cut Fertilizer Use Again This Fall
Planting decisions still uncertain due to delayed harvest.
Bryce Knorr
Published: Oct 29, 2009
Faced with record high fertilizer costs last fall, U.S. farmers dramatically cut back on their nutrient applications. Prices are far lower this year, but harvest delays and squeezed profit margins make it difficult to predict whether the cutbacks will take hold for another season, crop experts told a gathering of the fertilizer industry on Wednesday.
Phil Cochran, a crop consultant from Paris, IL, estimates one-third of the growers he works with are still cutting back for 2010, while a handful plan to switch to 100% soybeans in an effort to reduce costs.
But Cochran, talking to the annual outlook conference of the fertilizer industry, said planting decisions are still up in the air due to the delayed harvest in the Midwest. "The jury is still out. They haven't bought their seed yet," Cochran said.
The adviser provided his growers with three scenarios for P and K. Last year farmers based decisions on high prices, he noted, but this fall some are continuing to use less than normal due to the financial squeeze. That could save them $40 an acre, including nitrogen; last year the difference in cost was $120. Both ends of the application ranges he used could be justified by University of Illinois standards, but farmers generally prefer higher fertility levels.
Harry Vroomen, director of economics for The Fertilizer Institute, noted the big decline in farm income projected for 2009: "The psyche of the grower is an important factor in making input and planting decisions."
Terry Roberts, president of the International Plant Nutrition Institute, says farmer cutbacks in fertilizer applications on this year crop are just the tip of the iceberg. U.S. farmers have mined their soils for years, starting in the 1980s. "In the mid-1960s and 1970s we were putting a lot more in the ground than we were taking out," Roberts said. For example, over the last 20 years potash consumption rose from 7.4 to 9.5 million metric tons, while just 5.1 MMT of the nutrient was applied in 2007."This is not a sustainable system," Roberts concluded. "We can't continue to do this without paying the price. Eventually the system will crash."
Still, he doesn't expect this year's cutbacks to have a major impact on yields unless fertility in a field already had dropped to a critical level. "We know we didn't remove all the P and K this year," Roberts said.
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Tagged: fertilizer, Harvest, farm, soybeans
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