Home Forums Miscellaneous Topics Rural Living Fertilizer when does it become impractical

Has most people that would be reading this now fertilizer is going to be ridiculously high it looks like this spring it was bad enough last fall and they say it's getting worse. What's the most practical spend the same amount of dollars and fertilize less acres to soil test recommendations or spread more acres at like half the recommendation or a third. The when does it become not worth the time and fuel to drive over?
This I'm referring more to as in pastures and hay fields.

My grass hay and pastures nearly double production with a fair amount of urea every spring.

That said, I have already locked in and payed for my hay field fertilizer.

Corn fert and anhydrous is payed for and on already too. That was rough, but ya got nothing without it.

We have our pastures tested, and apply N,P, and K as recommended.

I wish we could buy Ammonia Nitrate.

Oh I test usually every 3 years but when it starts approaching $125 an acre and more to fertilize some of it the spec that's pretty stiff in pastor and hay ground.

I spend my fertilizer money on corn and bean fields. Pasture and hayfields I rely on manure applications, rotational grazing and specific seeding mixtures.

We are going to put liquid nitrogen down on the wheat that we sowed for hay later on this week, by a custom applicator. That was about the cheapest route, and at that we're cutting back to 70 units. We put P and K on our pastures last fall, as well as lime. We will put some urea on them later on. A year of high fertilizer prices like we're seeing now might not hurt so much, but from all indications, there is no end in sight, and that worries me.

We're planning to fertilize and cut cow hay twice this year. Our horse quality hay will be fertilized same as always and cut every 4-5 weeks. I'm going to make 4x5 rolls and raise prices accordingly. Our horse customers won't be happy getting a smaller roll and paying $20+ more a roll, but they're stuck.
As far as pasture is concerned we're going to keep selling cows till we don't need to fertilize pastures. My thinking is, It's going get real bad around here, especially if we have a drought.

Weather will be what it will be. A dry year this year could REALLY put a hurting on things. I agree with your thinking.....and hope we're wrong!

Drought is the variable you can't know when calculating if and how much fertilizer to apply to grain or a hayfield. It doesn't work to fertilize much, if at all, in a dry year. The more rain, the more benefit from fertilizer in my experience.

Very smart approach IMO.

I wouldn't be surprised to see more folks try cover crops on corn/bean ground if fertilizer prices stay high. Some of the legume cover crops can add a considerable N credit if planted/terminated timely.

If you can do it, spend money on fertilizer until the last dollar spent returns one dollar.

I posted this up in the hunters campfire forum, but I'll post it again here. We got a bill from the co-op yesterday for $2800. That was urea on about 18 acres @ $90 an acre, and liquid nitrogen on about 18 acres of wheat we will cut for hay at $78 an acre. We still have another 15 acres of pasture to put nitrogen on. Highest I've ever paid for nitrogen fertilizer. Thankfully, we put P and K on last fall at cheaper prices.

With the price of cattle, it's hard to pay that much, but they have to eat no matter what the price is.

Most of the farmers around here use chicken liter and every few years test soil samples and add specifics if/as needed based on the results of those tests. Many of the those planting crops around here also raise chickens....same for many of the cattle farmers and those that raise/sell hay. Many purchase chicken liter for hay and pastures. It's a $ saver/maker for all involved. It does smell until the first rain but most try to wait to spread it until right before a rain.

I'm curious how the rise in the cost of fertilizer will effect the cost of chicken liter.....I'm sure the electric cost and feed cost has increased for those raising chickens. I'm not sure how much of that is controlled by the grower's contracts. As I understand it, the contracts can be pretty cut throat. It may end up that the $ will balance out for the growers based on how much chit they end up peddling...

We buy turkey liter from a man that did not raise his price this spring.

I could buy chicken litter here, as there are a number of chicken houses, mostly owned by the Mennonites. But, that stuff smells awful, and my pasture fields are close to my house, so I don't want that. Also, and this is a consideration........every bit of chicken litter that I've seen had dead chickens in it, and to be honest, I don't want that where my livestock would be in contact with it. There is probably no concern, but I'm not taking the chance that the litter might contain a disease.

Latest fertilizer around here $1,000 a ton give or take 20 bucks pretty much no matter the formulation. Turkey litter I'd like to have about 300,000 ton of that stuff right now very high in phosphorus that's the one ingredient on a big chunk of our farm that hurts us on expense.
Now I have a Mennonite neighbor that has the turkey houses problem is I guess somewhere else close to it not his personally but somewhere close enough this bird flu thing has caused a problem so they are making him destroy and burn all birds and litter within his houses and burn and destroy the best he can all other letters stockpiled and he cannot spread it for his own use. So now he is stuck with a major fertilizer bill at $1,000 a ton when he is used to getting it basically for free from his litter and this includes his corn ... Several acres I'm talking like 2,000 acres of corn

On one field, the turkey liter cost us $178 an acre, trucking, and spreading.

This year's fertilizer budget.

And the budget for diesel is just enough to empty the spreader...

Farmer who rents my Dad's land spoke with him a couple of days ago. Said there was going to be a lot less corn and soybeans planted this year. According to him, only those who have access to chicken litter will be planting.

About 60 acres worth.