8-18-10 Agronomy Update
The fertilizer market for this fall is looking like it will be a bit higher than last fall. The current NH3 price is $550/ton or $.34/pound of actual nitrogen. Current Urea prices are $370/ton or $.40/pound of actual nitrogen. This NH3 price is $125/ton higher than last fall. This price is for fall applied only. Also we give you the ability to pay for it before or after the 1st of the year depending on where you need it for tax purposes. As many of you can contest to, the more you can get done in the fall the better off you are in the spring.
In the Herbicide world there is a new chemistry that hit the market this past spring that we feel will be a good fit for our area in a post-harvest burndown application. The name is Kixor technology and the chemical that we will use is called Sharpen, which is a BASF product. You will apply this post harvest with your glyphosate. We used some this past spring for a pre-plant burndown and it did an excellent job, and the speed of the burndown is exceptional, you see results within just a few days.
There are some herbicides that we used a lot more of this year, than we have in the past, and have seen very positive results with. One of them is Rimfire Max. This is used for grass control in wheat. It does a great job on wild oats, foxtails, and even foxtail barley which is a very hard weed to control in wheat. And is a weed that is becoming more prevalent in our area. It’s a dry product and the use rate is very small so it is an easy to use product, and is very competitively priced in the grass control market. Another product in wheat is Goldsky. Goldsky has been out for 2 years and we have used more and more every year since its inception. This is a brand new mode of action that is has both grass and broadleaf control in wheat. A very simple use rate and a cheaper price than a more traditional wheat herbicide mixture. The only fall back of this product is its weakness on Canada thistle, it does a good job burning it down and knocking it back, but it doesn’t kill it dead. But with as much pre-harvest burndown that goes on these days, which is a better way to clean up Canada thistle.
