Soil Fertility Programs Lacking Fundamentals: Balanced fertility and high yields key to improving profits

摘要

As natuial gas and fertilizer prices lise, a Potash & Phosphate Institute (PPI) soil expert says some farmers reactively try to offset input costs by cutting back on fertilizer applications. Paul Fixen, senior vice president, North American program coordinator and director of research for PPI, says that yield, price and expenses each affects the profit equation, but farmers attaining higher yields will spread costs over more production and actually reduce the costs pel unit of yield. From studies conducted in 1997 and again in 2001, PPI experts reported that nearly half of the nation's soils test average or below average for both phosphorus and potassium because nutrient applications have not kept up with the nutrient removal by crops.