It’s important to be as efficient as possible when prices are down, and input costs are high. Fertilizer investments go hand-in-hand with maximizing yield, which in turn puts more money in farmers’ pockets. Stephanie Zelinko, national agronomist with AgroLiquid, talks about the biggest misconceptions growers have about fertilizer investment and yield.

“I think there’s a mindset out there that high yield is going to equal high profit, and many times that’s not the case. There’s always going to be that point of diminishing return, so growers need to work and figure out where to set that yield goal, how to spend those dollars to make sure that they’re always getting that best return, and it’s not always going to be pushing for those highest yields. I think growers should always be aware of how they’re spending their crop nutrition dollars, regardless of where input prices are, but it’s even more critical when we’re dealing with higher prices because budgets don’t really go as far, and so knowing what that plant needs, what your soil can provide, is the best place to start, but then you can make adjustments based on timing, based on placement, and that maybe help you get a little bit more out of those fertilizer products that you’re applying.”

She talks about where growers should start in optimizing their investments.

“Everything is going to start with a good soil test. It’s a pretty cheap investment overall if you look at things, and it’s going to give you the best opportunity for return. The bigger piece is knowing what to do with those numbers once you get them back and how to understand that soil test. So, that’s why we always encourage growers to work with somebody that understands those numbers and gathers that information. Crop Nutrition Week is a great place to start. It’s a virtual event that begins February 3, and so it’s an opportunity for growers to get a little bit of a deep dive into some of those strategies that real growers use to help make those fertilizer buying decisions and maximize their return on investment.”

There’s a lot planned for Crop Nutrition Week.

“It’s a series of panel discussions that are in email content, so growers do not have to attend a live event, and it focuses on helping growers find the right balance between the crop nutrition needs of their crop and the budget that they have to work with. And so, we’ll get to hear from a lot of growers, some agronomy experts, get their advice and then work with real-time soil examples on kind of a consulting basis in a budgeting workshop that we actually have a grower from Oklahoma come in and walk through what he would do on his farm. Our website, CropNutritionWeek.com, has all the information. That’s where growers can go to register. Each day, they will get an email and then have those tools sent directly to their inbox, and then they can watch the panels, whether they can do it right then or if they want to wait till later in the week or another week that works better. All that information is going to be available to them during and after the event.”

There will be more panelists than in past years.

“We’re going to hear from AgroLiquid agronomists. And then this year, we’ve tied in a lot of growers from across the country. I mentioned the grower from Oklahoma, so we have a couple of growers in there, along with growers that are part of the extreme ag community, and the nice thing is they’re from across the U.S., so they bring in all different perspectives on the different topics we’re going to be covering. There’s no deadline to sign up. We encourage growers to go ahead and register so they make sure to get all of that information on day one when it starts. Signing up now does actually allow them to be eligible to win one of three prizes that we have for Crop Nutrition Week, but you can sign up anytime and then get that directly to your email box.”