A Hands-On Approach to Fertility: Are You in Control of your Nitrogen Investment?

There’s a common adage in our industry that states, “For every pound of fertilizer applied, you unlock an additional bushel in yield.” And because this knowledge has been passed down for the last few generations, we’ve stopped truly thinking about the math behind this advice.

The reality is, the amount of nitrogen your crop is accessing is less than the amount that is being applied. So when it comes to controlling your fertility plan – instead of letting it control you – you have to be willing to ask yourself tough questions like, “What am I trying to accomplish by applying 100 pounds of fertilizer?” and “Is my nitrogen-based fertility plan really working?”

If you’re in the business of asking these tough questions, follow along with the final installment of “A Hands-On Approach to Soil Fertility” which will will cover the following topics: 

• The most efficient method to spoon feed your crop nitrogen
• Why you shouldn’t look at Pivot Bio’s products like snake oil biologicals
• Putting your nitrogen program to the test 

Spoon Feeding Your Crop Nitrogen

When feeding your current crop nitrogen, spoon feeding that crop through split applications is by far the best approach to maximizing results. And there is no better product on the market today designed to do just this than Pivot Bio’s Proven 40.

Although a corn crop mostly uses nitrate, it does prefer a balance of both nitrate and ammonia. Pivot Bio products are the ultimate spoon feeding program because the microbes live on the root of your corn, fix atmospheric nitrogen daily, and provide that back to the crop in the form of ammonia. Which is important because ammonia is a more efficient form of nitrogen as it’s closer to the final need of the plant. Here’s how it works:

First, nitrate is converted into nitrite, then from nitrite into ammonia, and from ammonia to an amino acid, which is converted into protein that is a building block of yield. 

When applying nitrate as part of our fertility plan we’re two steps away from becoming ammonia, which means the plant needs to spend energy converting that nutrient into an amino acid. But when the plant is receiving this nutrient as ammonia, you’re a step closer! The less energy the plant is spending on this process, the more it can spend on grain fill and establishing that final yield. 

A Biological Built and Backed by Science

Yes, you read that last paragraph right. I’m telling you that a biological product can be key to improving your nitrogen plan. But I’m not recommending just any biological, I’m recommending Pivot Bio’s. And here why: 

As I type this post, there are naturally-occuring microbes in the soils outside of my window that fix atmospheric nitrogen and produce ammonia. And as these microbes fix atmospheric nitrogen once they sense there is enough ammonia available in the soil, they don’t continue to give that feely back to the soil. They use it as their own energy source to reproduce and survive. 

The difference between these naturally-occurring microbes and the microbes in Pivot Bio’s Proven40 is that Pivot’s microbes are gene-edited to do this process more efficiently and effectively than the ones we find in our fields today. 

Here are the changes they made and how it works:

1. Deleted the Inhibitor: Pivot’s microbes have been altered to fix nitrogen even in the presence of nitrogen. Where a naturally-occuring microbe would stop this process due to adequate nitrogen available in the soil, these microbes will continue to fix nitrogen regardless of the soil levels of the nutrient.
2. Increased Regulation: Pivot Bio scientists upregulated the microbe’s expression to increase nitrogen fixation. We can compare this process to a computer, the more RAM a computer has the faster it can upload and download information. By upregulating the microbe’s expression rate, they enabled this microorganism to fix nitrogen at a higher rate than their naturally-occurring counterparts. 
3. Created Continual Nitrogen Fixation: Pivot Bio’s microbes have been edited so instead of taking the excess and using it as their own food for reproduction and survival, they continue to fix nitrogen and release it into the soil for your crop’s use. 

Not only is the above science pretty amazing, but Pivot Bio takes over 12,000 in-field crop samples annually to ensure the above process actually occurs in farmer’s fields. They’re even using pretty innovative packaging to ensure these microbes arrive in your fields alive and healthy enough to do the above processes. It’s a ton of science and innovation that I will save for another blog post, but believe me, no one else on the market today is taking biologicals this seriously, which is why we at Red Barn take them seriously.

Putting Your N Program to the Test with Pivot Bio

“Ok, Matt. I used Pivot Bio and I saw a bigger greener plant, but no impact on yield. How does this happen?”

First of all help me understand how you set up your Pivot Bio test. Did you replace nitrogen with Pivot Bio or did you use Pivot Bio on-top-of a full or reduced synthetic nitrogen program? And based on our in-field test results maybe even more importantly, did you do a reduced rate synthetic nitrogen trial to understand if your field is Nitrogen Responsive?  

If you reduce your entire field by 40 pounds of nitrogen and use Proven 40, you’re technically still using an over the top application, it’s just on top of a reduced rate. But if you reduce the rate of the entire field by 40 pounds and then apply an extra 40 pounds of nitrogen on your test strip, then you’re looking at Pivot Bio versus the full rate nitrogen program. 

With the second approach, you’re looking apples to apples so you shouldn’t expect to see significant yield increases because you’re applying the same amount of nitrogen to the crop thus success is parity, NOT a yield increase. Utilizing a reduced rate synthetic nitrogen trial along with your Pivot Bio trial is important because we are finding more and more fields where yields are simply not responding to additional fertilizer. 

How you see this is by seeing parity between your treated, untreated, and reduced strips, and this means not only are you not seeing a response from Pivot Bio but you are not seeing a response from synthetic nitrogen. Remember for every pound of fertilizer you add you should add a bushel of yield, and economically you need to add at least one bushel of yield for every 5-6 pounds of fertilizer.

Putting your nitrogen program to the test takes a more directed approach than applying blanket rates and coffee shop theories, using a systems approach and developing your Max Yield Systems plan will help you both test and know you’re getting what you paid for. So, are you applying 100 pounds of nitrogen because there is an economic benefit OR because it’s what you’ve been told to apply for your entire farming career?

It’s products like Pivot Bio that give us the opportunity to rethink some of these long-held fertility plan practices, and it’s what gets our team excited about when we partner with you to create your very own Max Yield System Fertility Plan.

Are you in Control of Your Fertility Plan?

I had to break up fertility planning into a three part series because it’s simply too much information to try and squeeze into a single post. 

The soil test we discussed in Part I will help you understand the specifics of what you need to ladder up to that yield creation. The fundamentals of your fertility plan we discussed in Part II should extend beyond the traditional NPK mindset to help you truly utilize fertility to unlock yield potential. And finally, when investing in a big ticket input like nitrogen, when was the last time you truly measured its return? And are you ready to start thinking differently about this input?

The economics of farming are only getting tighter, meaning there is no better time for a mindset shift. The information we’ve shared these last three weeks combines to create a complex equation that spans the entire growing season, and you need to ensure you’re compiling strong data points to understand the impact of these practices.

If you want to take control of your fertility plan by dialing in the data that supports a positive ROI of this plan, contact us! We love a good math problem and we love to help our customers unlock yield and profitability!

This concludes our three-part series, “A Hands-On Approach to Soil Fertility.” If you missed Parts I and II follow the links below to catch up on the content!

This post was written by Axis Seed – Red Barn Enterprises President and resident corn expert, Matt Long.