18 November 2013
Sustained crop returns for wheat and maize
Digging a little deeper into the budget for grain fertiliser has valuable paybacks in terms of crop yields for maize and
wheat, according to recent studies funded by Ballance Agri-Nutrients.
Trials were undertaken in Canterbury, Southland and Waikato in spring 2012 to evaluate the performance of standard urea
against Ballance Agri-Nutrient’s SustaiN, which is urea coated with the urease inhibitor AGROTAIN®. Agrotain is a
nitrogen stabiliser that has been proven to suppress ammonia volatilisation, delivering more nitrogen directly to the
soil where it can contribute to plant growth.
The trials showed that the additional cost of $11/ha for SustaiN (applied at 100 kg N/ha) was readily recouped.
While in one wheat trial SustaiN only produced slightly more grain yield than urea, at the second site, SustaiN at
around 100 kg N/ha out-yielded urea at the same rate by more than half a tonne of grain per hectare. This highlights the
risk of reduced nitrogen efficiency through ammonia volatilisation with urea. At a grain price of $400/t, the extra 0.5
t grain/ha would be worth an extra $200/ha, making the additional $11/ha for SustaiN a sound risk investment.
In the maize trial, at 100 kg N/ha the $11/ha additional cost delivered an even higher increase in grain yield of 2.6
t/ha. At a maize grain price of $500/t, this would return $1300/ha more, easily recouping the added fertiliser cost.
Ballance Science Manager, Aaron Stafford, said the maize yields could have potentially been better given the trials took
place during the drought, so lower than average grain yields were achieved.
“This trial work carried out by independent researchers supports our position that investing a little more is certainly
worth the money, given the results of the trials.”
Both the maize and wheat trials were set up with large plot sizes (10 m x 3 m) and high replication (10 replicate plots
for each treatment). This was done to ensure large areas were harvested with high replication, so as to minimise
background crop yield variability, which can easily mask product performance benefits.
In one Waikato maize trial, SustaiN applied at 100 kg N/ha achieved similar yields to both standard urea and SustaiN
applied at 200 kg N/ha. This highlights the need to apply only the amount of nitrogen that is required to grow the crop,
but at the same time ensuring that the nitrogen being applied is effective. The Agrotain in SustaiN helps provide this
assurance.
“These results clearly support previous work that SustaiN can outperform urea, as a result of reduced ammonia
volatilisation losses,” said Mr Stafford.
ENDS