Nitrogen strategies help determine what's available to crop in season

Federal forecasters at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Climate Predication Center are predicting a warm, damp spring is on tap for much of the United States. If you couple that with an unseasonably warm winter that could mean conditions are ripe for some level of nitrogen loss in your fields.

Your personal nitrogen strategies are going to help determine how much plant available nitrogen could be available to your crops later this season. Farmers who applied nitrogen in the fall or too early in the spring without any type of nitrogen stabilizer may see an uptick in nitrogen loss due to denitrification, volatilization, runoff or leaching prior to plant uptake.