Fertilizer prices

[Jim S.]

Well the 60-30-40 is going on the hayfield tomorrow afternoon. It's been a couple years now of straight N, so I thought I'd better go all the way this time.

Price here is $360.75 a ton for the 60-30-40. So 3,553 pounds is gonna run me $640.86.

Last year, I did 3,500 pounds of straight N for $450.

How are prices in your neck of the woods?

[veggrower]

Prices are high. I don't keep track of it because I am organic and my manure and compost costs stayed the same.

My neighbor who is about 80 and has raised cannery crops, wheat and hay his whole life is unhappy with his fert prices. He quit doing beans last year because his sons wouldn't help out. This year he has decided to just harvest the winter wheat he put down for a cover crop and not grow sweet corn either. He says the cost of the fert was the final straw for him.

I pay $144/ton for chix manure pellets which is 4-3-3-6Ca-3S+trace min. Found a company last week that will deliver and spread aged chix manure for $6/yard. Also found a mushroom grower that will deliver spent mushroom compost for $10/yd, 50 yd min.

No where near the potency of what you are spreading. What rate/acre do you spread such high analysis fert?

[travlnusa]

Soil tests say I can pass this year, but will be looking at N on pastures next year.

[Jim S.]

Hey veg, I'm not organic, I need my hay to sell so I can have some free to feed.

We'll go 200 pounds an acre and cut about 60-plus 5x5 round bales of fescue-orchardgrass off 15 acres of hay ground on halves in spring, half to me and half to the cutter. I'll lay off the fertilizer in fall, and will still get another 50-plus bales on that cutting. My buyers will snap up 75% of my half (which last year was 55 bales and this year ought to be around 60-plus with adequate rainfall), which is already presold for 2007, and that pays for the fertilizer, and gives me the remaining 15 bales to feed for free. Works good.

Fertilizer prices are up this year over last here, but not a great deal for N-P-K. Just wondered about the rest of the country. I usually fertilize after first cutting, to boost fall growth, but it has been droughty here and is predicted to be so again this year, so I am going spring this year and laying off fall. I usually run 3-5 years of N, then come back with N-P-K for a year, then back to N, just broadcasting once a year.

Can't use the chicken manure route. I know other farmers who went that way and ruined good productive stands of hay. It comes all right after it is put on, and there's a good harvest but it ruins the lot for weedy growth in the next season and the grass stunts. At least that's what I have seen happen around here more than once. Hay production then falls, too. I guess that's fine if you are keeping it and feeding it yourself, but my goal is to sell my way out of my expenses and get my feed for free.

Been working it this way for 17 years now.

[agmantoo]

Either you are getting a major bargain or we are getting abused. Your analysis (60-30-40) given above would cost in excess of $500 per ton here in NC.

[veggrower]

Jim, I knew you weren't organic. I am just always interested in what other farmers are doing. I make no judgements about organic/commercial methods. I chose what made sense to me. I am just curious as to what other growers do and use. I know nothing about hay other than to watch for bees nests and rattlesnakes under the bales when bucking

It would be a pain to bring in weeds with the manure. I grow fresh veg in rows and so I tractor cultivate.

I appreciate your answer. I learned some new stuff, thanks.

[DaleK]

We bought 40 tons of urea in January at $440 Canadian. Within a week it was at $500. The suppliers at that time were expecting $700 by spring and last I heard it's been on a steady climb towards that area. We actually only use liquid on corn ground so our dealer will substitute liquid for the dry urea at planting time but he can only prebook dry. Haven't booked starters yet, unfortunately our soil tests haven't come back yet so we don't have a very good idea what we'll be using.

[Jim S.]

Wow, agman, thanks for making me feel better, and I hope I can do something for you someday! LOL. The N is urea, and the quote is exact, from my co-op.

They say around here that is it ethanol that's doing it this year, like natural gas price hikes did it last year, and I understand why. Anytime you can forward sell a crop that's not in the ground yet for a guaranteed $1 over last year, that's gonna shift a lot of ground to corn, and corn eats fertilizer. Especially in the Midwest, where corn on corn spoken like a magic mantra these days.

veg, I didn't take your post as a values judgment. I do practice good management of runoff, etc., which involves proper placement of the fertilizer at the proper time of day, timing in coordination with rain (too much rain = too much runoff), and assessing the growth status of the grass before application (to avoid fertilizing too early when it is still dormant). Good conservation practices save me money in the long run by making sure the stuff I bought is there for the plants on my place, not downstream.

[Silvercreek Farmer]

Originally Posted by Jim S.

Hey veg, I'm not organic, I need my hay to sell so I can have some free to feed.

We'll go 200 pounds an acre and cut about 60-plus 5x5 round bales of fescue-orchardgrass off 15 acres of hay ground on halves in spring, half to me and half to the cutter. I'll lay off the fertilizer in fall, and will still get another 50-plus bales on that cutting. My buyers will snap up 75% of my half (which last year was 55 bales and this year ought to be around 60-plus with adequate rainfall), which is already presold for 2007, and that pays for the fertilizer, and gives me the remaining 15 bales to feed for free. Works good.

Fertilizer prices are up this year over last here, but not a great deal for N-P-K. Just wondered about the rest of the country. I usually fertilize after first cutting, to boost fall growth, but it has been droughty here and is predicted to be so again this year, so I am going spring this year and laying off fall. I usually run 3-5 years of N, then come back with N-P-K for a year, then back to N, just broadcasting once a year.

Can't use the chicken manure route. I know other farmers who went that way and ruined good productive stands of hay. It comes all right after it is put on, and there's a good harvest but it ruins the lot for weedy growth in the next season and the grass stunts. At least that's what I have seen happen around here more than once. Hay production then falls, too. I guess that's fine if you are keeping it and feeding it yourself, but my goal is to sell my way out of my expenses and get my feed for free.

Been working it this way for 17 years now.

No offense, but that doesn't sound like such a good deal to me. Around here the 15 bales might cost you $25 each for a total of $375, even at $35 they would only be $525. If that is all the return you get on 15 acres, you might want to look at doing something else, even leasing it for $50 per acre/year, then buying your hay would be a better deal, not to mention if you could get $100+ an acre. Just a thought...

Also, and I might be wrong about this, but aren't the figures on fertilizer percentages? The fertilzer you mentioned totaled 130, is that possible? Or is there just something I am missing?

[Jim S.]

Matt, sounds like a great deal to me! Cuz you gotta remember, 15 bales is not ALL the return I am getting off that hay crop.

I feed my goat herd hay off my own place for free, the hay sales I make on the 45 or so bales I have on average in surplus (45 x $20 = $900; 45 x $25 = $1,125) both pay for the fertilizer and add to my total farm sales for tax purposes, which helps me on my taxes, where the government pays me back 30% of the cost of fertilizer I already paid for with the hay sales, plus all my other farm expenses.

Doing it this way, I own zero hay harvesting equipment, so no payments or upkeep there.

If I had held hay this winter rather than presold, I could have gotten $65 a bale for it...had lots of inquiries, too. I'd rather presell and be done with it, though.

The hay that is sold here for $25 a bale I wouldn't want. It is full of sedge grass and is stuff the guy cutting it doesn't want, which is why he is selling it. For better or worse, I know what I have in my own hay, cuz I have managed it from the ground up. I control when it is cut, too.

By doing my own hay, I avoid bringing the following crapola onto my place with outside hay, which is all prevalent here: bermuda grass (chokes out the other grasses), fire ants, thistles. That's a direct positive return.

Fertilizer rates are the ratio, not percentages, and 60-30-40 is a typical hay mixture. E-Z example, in 10-20-10, the ratio would be 2:4:2 or 2 parts nitrogen to 4 parts phosphorus to 2 parts potassium.

Now let's look at leasing...first, you can't get $50 an acre here for livestock. Second, the fencing and facility upkeep for livestock would be my expenses. (I checked on doing it one year.) Third, I would be letting someone else on my land who may not manage like I like it done (been there once, folks don't treat your land and stuff like you do, believe me), fourth, if I leased it for cotton land (which I could do), then I would have reclamation costs when the crop came back out in addition to the heavy herbicide and pesticide use.

Now, looking at the best return on my 15 acres, which is next to a semi-rural subdivision -- that would be to "farm" houses on it...and that is exactly what I am going to do in another 10 years.

Back when I ran cows, I ran them on it in winter then pulled them for spring, to let it grow and cut hay. But goats take a lot better fence than is there, so that land is now hay ground. I am fencing another big lot of lowland now, so the goat pastured portion of the farm is still expanding.

Kind of hard to just look at the one aspect without knowing all else that is going on with the place.

I do like being self-sufficient on my own place, and I like winter feeding my goat herd for $34...which is what it cost me total this year. No question the highest use of the land from a cash view is to plant houses on it. But that's not why I own it. Yet.

[rambler]

Originally Posted by Jim S.

Fertilizer rates are the ratio, not percentages, and 60-30-40 is a typical hay mixture. E-Z example, in 10-20-10, the ratio would be 2:4:2 or 2 parts nitrogen to 4 parts phosphorus to 2 parts potassium.

This must be a regional thing - I've mentioned it be4, perhaps with you even.

If we wanted to apply 60lbs N, 30lbs P, 40 lbs K 'here' for example, we would need to order say 20-15-20 and apply 200 lbs of it per acre. So to do 15 acres, we would need to call up & ask for:

A ton & 1/2 of 20-15-20. And it would be applied at 200lbs per acre.


We could not ask for 60-30-40. No one around here would have a clue what that meant. It really stumps me when I see that - you can't have more than 100% fert in the analysis. The ratio is much simpler expressed as a % of 100lbs of material. I really can't grasp what 60-30-40 means, because application rates varry - so those numbers become meaningless. No idea how much you are applying, or what it contains, or ...... For the way things are done around 'here'. Fert is always a % of actual so a person knows what they are dealing with.

A real curve ball for those of us from different areas. Not 'wrong', just 'different'.

--->Paul

[Jim S.]

Not regional, it's a ratio based on soil tests and the underlying materials used. Googling it, I see 60-30-40 in sites in Maine, California, North Carolina, Louisiana...and that's just one page.

Colorado State says it best, though...

http://www.ext.colostate.edu/Pubs/ga...7731.html#what

Very informative site. Enjoy.

[Jim S.]

Ok, I was intrigued so I called the co-op. Even though it is about to rain and they are covered up with customers, they explained it in a nutshell. The 60-30-40 is based on the number of plant food units available in 100 pounds of the final mix. The numbers are unrelated, but are a ratio, and so do not have to add up to 100%.

To arrive at that, they go to the rating of each underlying material used to deliver the N, P, and K. (For example, ammonia does not deliver as much N as urea does per 100 pounds, so you would need more proportional ammoinia in 100 pounds of 60-30-40 than you would with urea.)

Each unit of plant food delivered in the number at 100 pounds is divided out based on the actual analysis of the underlying material used to furnish the N, P or K, until the 60-30-40 is achieved. Since some material they use to finish one aspect of the mix has more than one plant food value, this allows for factoring them all into it.

So say, for example, the material they use for the P has an actual analysis of 18-46-0. Looking at N, the 18 applies toward the 60 and leaves 42 left to come from elsewhere (which is made up from the urea N that I used).

The material is blended by weight using the underlying analysis of each source material, divided up to deliver 60 units, 30 units and 40 units of plant food per 100 pounds. This equalizes all the underlying source materials, and so it make substitions for cheaper source materials possible to achieve the same rate of feeding.

So what it really is, when it all is boiled down, is a mathematical formula that is being used to deliver the fertilizer at the values specified while swapping in and out constituents of varying food value, depending on cost, to arrive at the cheapest mix possible.

Perhaps that is why my fertilizer costs are cheaper than some others who have posted.

I know they have a computer program to do the figuring for them, based on your soil analysis, acreage and spread rate.

[Jim S.]

Here, I just found the perfect site to explain it...

http://www.noble.org/Ag/Soils/WhatDo...ean/index.html

[Cabin Fever]

So, what you're saying is, the 60-30-40 is a soil test recommendation of:
60 lbs N/acre
30 lbs P2O5/acre
40 lbs K2O /acre

The fertilizer cost is $360.75 per ton.

So, the natural questions are:
"How many pounds per acre of fertilizer is the application rate?" Or, "How many acres does one ton provide the 60-30-40 application to?"
"What are the unit costs per pound for the N, P2O5 and K2O?

[Silvercreek Farmer]

Thanks for the soil analysis link, sure clears things up.

[frazzlehead]

Fascinating thread, guys.

I work for a company that builds software which magically figures out blends (and helps ag retailers track their finances) ... so if you say you want 15 lbs/acre of N, 20 of P and 10 of K .. but you are mixing 11-52-0, 0-0-60 and 46-0-0 ... how much of each product do you need to give the ratio requested. The math is insanely complicated: essentially, it's linear algebra and problem solving all mashed into code. :S

I'm gonna try out the 60-30-40 blend tomorrow at work.

[Jim S.]

Thanks frazzlehead! My farmers' co-op uses just such a computer program to arrive at their blends. You're right, it is complex! I'll check back for your reply later.

Cabin Fever:

"How many pounds per acre of fertilizer is the application rate?" 200

"How many acres does one ton provide the 60-30-40 application to?" It took 3,553 pounds to cover 15 acres

"What are the unit costs per pound for the N, P2O5 and K2O?" Those are unknown to me, other than that I was given the option of selecting ammonia or urea and chose urea for its cheaper cost to achieve the desired analysis. (A second consideration is that ammonia gasses off in the sunlight if you don't get your rain you were counting on...which we didn't, despite 70 percent chances at time of spread! We are finally going to get rain today, 5 days after the app.) But like I said, the beauty of the system is that the co-op can substitute underlying sources of N, P and K -- based on cost -- that have varying analyses, and still mix up the right stuff to hit the unit target.

Your first 2 questions are what I am asked every time I buy...what is the application rate, and how many acres are you doing. That's plugged into the puter along with the targeted ratio (60-30-40) and it spits out the mix and the exact weight needed.

Like I said, 60-30-40 is a very common mix for hay. When I spread, I take half the recommended buggy gate opening and spread one direction, then spread a second time crossways to my first application. Very rare for me not to hit every spot I want evenly.

My hay fields have a bit of Russia spread on them now, cuz that's where I'm told the materials came from this year.

[Cabin Fever]

So, to answer Rambler's comments, the fertilizer blend that you are purchasing has a ratio of 30-15-20. An application of 200 pounds per acre of 30-15-20 will supply 60# N/ac, 30# P/ac and 40#K/ac.

To address FrazzleHead's question, I provide the following:
23.5 pounds/acre of 46-0-0 (urea) provides 10.8# N/ac
38.5 pounds/acre of 11-52-0 (MAP) provides 4.2# N/ac and 20# P/ac
16.7 pounds/acre of 0-0-60 (potassium chloride) provides 10# K/ac
The blend of these three chemicals at the quantities given above results in a fertilizer ratio of 19-25.4-12.7

[Jim S.]

Cabin, yeah, but I thought that was already explained yesterday? True, rambler wrote 20-15-20, but I figured that was a typo. If you buy by the numbers, 200 of 30-15-20 would do it.

By least cost, though, it's not quite that simple, as the link showed and my experience shows, since 3,553 results in an actual spread rate of 236.87/acre. The variation in spread would be due to components, I am sure. That is another variable in the eqation.

The beauty is in the system that allows acreage, fertilizer components, and specific weights to be blended for least cost, rather than just ordering a number.

Even more beautiful, we are getting a nice soft rain today - finally.