EASY Experiences

Mark Jennings, EASY N cereals Toowoomba

Nitrogen hits the mark in irrigated crops

A switch to EASY N fertiliser is helping one Darling Downs farmer to boost crop growth and nitrogen uptake in his irrigated crops.

 

Mark Jennings manages a 405 hectare property, 60 kilometres south of Toowoomba on the Condamine River.

A wide variety of crops are grown on the property – corn, soy beans, mung beans, wheat, barley and chickpeas.

For the first time in 2008, a rotation of barley and oats for cattle feed was grown using EASY N.

EASY N is a liquid nitrogen fertiliser which provides growers with a nitrogen option that offers a lower volatilisation risk compared to surface applied urea.

Mark said the move to EASY N was made about eight years ago when centre pivots were installed on the 285 hectares under irrigation.

“We looked at other options, such as mixing urea into the water or applying it by spreaders just before irrigation.

“However, we decided on EASY N as the easiest and most convenient way of supplying a nitrogen top-up to the irrigated crops,” he said.

“Plus, when you compare the costs in time and labour of applying urea to running a small pump and irrigation to apply liquid fertiliser, EASY N was the better choice for us.”

Mark applies EASY N several times during the crop’s growing period at rates of about 47 L/ha of EASY N. The fertiliser is pumped from one of two 12,000 L tanks that have been installed on the property.

Results from using EASY N shown in the 2009 corn harvest have been especially pleasing.

“We ended up with 12 t/ha of grain from our corn crop,” Mark said.

“When heavy falls are forecast, we apply EASY N to the crop soon after, to avoid stress from waterlogging.

“If the crop starts to yellow off after a big rainfall, we give it some EASY N to improve it.”

Chickpea boost before harvest

As well as producing high quality crops, Mark has also been using EASY N to increase the height of the plants before harvest.

“It was an experiment to see if we could grow taller crops so the knives from the harvester weren’t running along the ground,” he said.

EASY N was applied twice with each irrigation at 24 L/ha during the growing season before flowering.

Mark said the extra application helped increase the height of the crop to about  70 cm high.

“We were really happy with this and it is something we will continue to do in the future when growing chickpeas.”

® EASY N is a registered trademark of Incitec Pivot Limited.

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