In his March Advanced Ag Systems newsletter, Certified Crop Advisor Tom Kilcer wrote that most farms growing winter triticale forage, with a high yield management package, often harvest tonnage above what they expected, yet the protein often is less than hoped for. With high soy meal prices, the lack of forage protein hurts. What an overdose of reality.
We can show that a three-ton winter forage dry matter yield will remove 192 lbs. of nitrogen (N) at 20% crude protein. Here’s the math on that extracted N poundage figure: three tons (6,000 lbs. forage DM) with 20% crude protein means that 1,200 lbs. crude protein left each acre. Protein, on average, is 16% N, hence the 192-lb. value cited by Kilcer.
Insufficient N (and sulfur) not only limits the protein of the crop, but also can drain the soil of available N. If this happens, corn planted in the next rotation phase usually does poorly for the first couple of weeks. A Band-Aid answer is to put some pop-up N fertilizer in with the corn seed. The better answer is to put enough on the winter triticale, then any left over can be “fed” to most crops to be planted later. Often there is enough left over to provide what the corn requires.
Speaking of N, let’s discuss current soil nutrient commodity prices. These come from research forwarded to me by Jeff Cassim, general manager of Liquid Products in Seneca Falls, NY. Cassim draws his data from fertilizer industry periodicals – not just commodity prices, but geopolitical facts impacting energy commodities as well as plant food raw materials. These are average values gleaned from a range of dollar prices per short ton for the day of quote.
The location of the quote is the freight point-of-origin nearest the Northeast, and the date of the quote is March 7, 2024. In parentheses is that commodity’s price on March 7, 2023: Urea (Cincinnati) $430 ($370); ammonium nitrate (Mid-south) $325 ($435); ammonium sulfate (Minneapolis) $355 ($375); urea/ammonium nitrate (Cincinnati) $320 ($307.50); ammonia (Eastern Corn Belt) $630 ($847.50); diammonium phosphate (Cincinnati) $685 ($665); mono-ammonium phosphate (Cincinnati) $680 ($630); muriate of potash (Vancouver) $226.50 ($419); sulfate of potash (West Coast) $720 ($840); and sulfur (Gulf Coast) $71 ($129).
According to Cassim’s industry contacts, short-term urea delivery periods are commanding a steep premium – targeting second quarter delivery – as potential buyers seek to minimize forward price risk in an uncertain demand market. But overall N supply (particularly on our continent) remains tight, and informed sources maintain that there exists a high likelihood of in-season supply squeezes when deferred demand emerges.
These sources also believe that Corn Belt and Midwest markets will probably remain firm, but buyers will likely remain resistant to higher spot market offers once applications spread out in the eastern Corn Belt. Lingering effects of fertilizer production outages in early January kept supply tight early on but prospective buyers expect resupply over the coming weeks to improve availability.
Moving on to phosphorus (P), the highest diammonium phosphate (DAP) values, achieved and bid the first week of March, were widely attributed to late transport vessel arrival, originally expected on March 1. But, quoting these sources directly, “The DAP market otherwise appears inverted into the second quarter, and the mono-ammonium phosphate (MAP) market remains quiet, pending the emergence of further demand.”
In addition to U.S. sources of rock phosphate, brokers are importing these ores from China, Morocco and the Baltic nations.
Moving onto potassium (K), domestic pricing has remained quite stable, likely increasing some as spring planting season gets closer. Most of the potash that’s sourced from our continent comes from the northwest U.S. and southwest Canada, although 65,000 short tons from Russia arrived at the Port of New Orleans the first week of March. Some potash comes from Brazil. U.S. producers plan for potash demand to pop up toward the end of March as spring applications intensify in warmer areas of the country.
The last soil macronutrient (following N, P and K) is sulfur (S). For this soil nutrient, spot market demand has improved in recent weeks. But a surplus of Canadian S supply has weighed against short-term pricing: output from inland producers presently appears to outweigh export demand. Alberta-based S production output during January 2024 increased by nearly 13% year-over-year to 383,400 short tons, according to the Alberta Energy Regulator. An unusually warm winter in that province enabled production from oil sands upgraders and natural gas processors, along with S transit, to remain largely unhindered.
The increased S availability has applied downward pressure to price offers of Vancouver-based suppliers. This lowered demand for S has encouraged increased numbers of S producers to build inventories. Sulfur exports from Vancouver dropped in January compared to a year ago, as port data show, due to curtailed production caused by priller outages.
Meanwhile, according to the National Weather Service (NWS), the Central Plains and the South are predicted to receive heavy rain moving eastward as March progresses. Corn Belt farmers are gearing up to plant as soil temperatures warm up a little ahead of schedule. According to NWS, the majority of the U.S. should experience warmer than average temperatures through the middle of the month. Near normal to below average temperatures are expected in the Rockies and the Southwest.
According to the NWS, below average precipitation is expected east of the Rockies – the rain shadow of those mountains. Above average precipitation is likely from that rain shadow to the East Coast.
When we try to understand the complex supply/demand world of feeding crops, let’s remind ourselves that in 1960 the U.S. consumed 25% of the all the plant food manufactured on the planet. In 2020, that figure had dropped to 10%. Our country isn’t using less fertilizer – the rest of the world is using much more.
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