Balanced Nutrients Increase Crop Yields and Aid in Environmental Protection
The below article is a summary of an article written by the scientific staff of the IPNI on issues impacted by nutrient stewardship.
Farmers are always looking for ways to achieve the perfect balance: Maximize production to feed the growing population while maintaining environmentally friendly practices. A key to achieving this balance is to utilize proper plant nutrition and best management practices, some of which are surprisingly easy and detailed below.
Before profiting from proper nutrient management, you should recognize that nutrients must exist in specific quantities. Plants require 17 nutrients for successful growth, 14 of which are mostly supplied through the soil. However, the relative amounts needed of each nutrient vary greatly. For example, there may be one million times more nitrogen (N) in a plant than there is molybdenum, but they are both equally essential for the plant to thrive. If just one of the nutrients is in short supply, none of the other nutrients can be properly used. Once appropriate nutrient quantities are established, farmers and the rest of us are able to realize the following benefits.
- Balanced nutrient use results in increased water use efficiency by crops. Water use efficiency can improve as much as two-fold by simply supplying essential nutrients in the proper balance. Good nutrition promotes rapid ground cover and healthy plant canopies, which ensure crops will use water efficiently and produce more grain with the same amount of water.
- Growing higher yielding and more efficient crops through balanced nutrition increases the capture of CO2 from the air, producing more biomass from the same area of land and storing more C in the soil. The increased soil C improves soil quality and the balanced nutrition produces healthy crops, which quickly develop a canopy that serves to protect the soil against rain and wind erosion. Extra surface residue left behind after harvest further protects against erosion and runoff.
- Well-fertilized crops produce more yield from the same area, which frees up fragile land for other important uses, such as wildlife habitat and recreation. This is critical as the amount of farmable land per person in the world is shrinking as the global population is growing. Between 6 and 17 percent of greenhouse gas production is attributed to the clearing of forests and native lands for agriculture, meaning best management practices are critical in limiting additional emissions.
To ensure sufficient food supplies for generations to come, farmers must pay close attention to the ways they utilize the land available to them. Proper nutrient management will not only result in higher crop yields, increasing the potential for increased profits, but will also allow for maximum yield from limited amounts of land.
