This year’s N loss is being made worse due to the previous three years of drier than average conditions. Carlson notes that there is typically some N loss annually during the spring months, but dry conditions have allowed it to build up and now that large reserve is flushing out of the soils.
“What we’re seeing in southern Minnesota is a worst-case scenario, and we’re starting to see a lot of the N loss occur through denitrification as well.”
Denitrification occurs when oxygen is lacking in the soil due to saturation and soil temps that are in the 70-to-80-degree range. During that process, the nitrogen moves up out of the soil, as opposed to leeching where the nitrate goes deeper, turns into a gas (N2) and absorbs into the atmosphere.
Corn and wheat fields may be seeing some yellowing as a result of the N loss, while soybeans are less dependent on it at this point in the growing season.
“As long as you have your weed control in check, you aren’t dealing with some sort of crippling disease issue and your plant is relatively healthy, you can still reach full yield potential pending things dry out here as we head into July,” Carlson said.
The difficulty now for a lot of producers when it comes to weed control or side dressing to supplement the N loss, is whether or not they can even get to the fields to address those issues.
“We have options to add some nitrogen, but they’re becoming more limited as the growing season continues, plus we’re having difficulty just getting into the fields because we’ve haven’t had hardly any consistent drying periods,” said Gene Stoel, Minnesota Soybean Research & Promotion Council (MSR&PC) director who farms near Lake Wilson.
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