How can I make the best of cereal crop nutrition this spring? – Farmart

When planning spring nutrition, it is important to recognise the prolonged wet spell will have left soil mineral Nitrogen (SMN) reserves low.

There’s hug variation in crops out there and some pretty sensitive crops that need managing carefully. Using variable nitrogen applications to even growth up and optimise yield potential has a much stronger role in a year like this.

The traditional approach in winter wheat is often to variably apply the first couple of doses, upping rates on thinner areas of crop to build biomass, while cutting rates on thicker parts, to generate more even canopies.

However this season, most fields will benefit from a good early nitrogen dose to get crops moving. The best approach might be to apply a flat rate first, then vary the second application to even crops up, before tailoring the final nitrogen applications to the yield potential of specific areas of crop.

In poorly established fields, adjust total nitrogen rates down as the critical “foundation growth period” will have been hindered and yields reduced beyond the point of extra nitrogen having any benefit.

In fact if fields are patchy, it may be worth shutting off areas that haven’t established as there is no point applying fertiliser on these areas. Where headlands have struggled, it would be worth looking at them out of production completely and planting a summer cover crop to maximise potential of autumn cropping.

Other nutrients are likely to be in shorter supply given how wet it has been, there could be a strong case for using a nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium and sulphur compound fertiliser to give crops a bit of an all-round nutritional boost.