Micronutrients

Micronutrients

David Sparks Ph.D.
David Sparks Ph.D.
In a discussion with Brian Olson of the Mosaic Company, he mentioned a website cropnutrition.com several times and kept on discussing the concept of micronutrients and macro nutrients and their importance in crop yield. Many soils require adding several essential nutrients to alleviate plant deficiencies. Farmers may opt to select a combination of single-nutrient fertilizers or apply a fertilizer that combines several nutrients into each particle. These combination fertilizers (compound or complex) can offer advantages of convenience in the field, economic savings and ease in meeting crop nutritional needs. So while I had Brian on the phone, I asked a couple of questions. "You have mentioned micronutrients, what is forcing the interest in that market? It goes back to that key message that up to 60% of your crop yield is dependent on soil fertility. So we have picked the low hanging fruit with the fertilizer methods and applications and practices in the past and so now we need to turn our attention to how to do that in a balanced manner knowing that these micronutrients play a very key role in higher yields so micronutrients are not all created equal. Some of them help different crops more than others so it is important not only for us as manufacturers but also as retailers and growers to start to have a better understanding of that if you intend to continue to increase your yield.
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