Early Season Wheat Fertility

With the unseasonably warm weather we’ve been having, growers across the plains are getting excited to start farming.  While lower prices are on everyone’s mind these days, cutting back on spring fertility could end up costing more than it saves.

In winter wheat, tiller development occurred last fall prior to dormancy, and will continue after green up this spring. In spring wheat, obviously everything occurs during spring after planting. When a winter wheat crop doesn’t form enough tillers in the fall, and a spring wheat crop is trying to get ramped up in cold temperatures, getting optimum yield in the summer depends heavily on nitrogen availability during green up.

The demand for nitrogen is the highest shortly after jointing (Feekes 6).  Applying the majority of the nitrogen requirement just before this period will help with efficient fertilizer use by the crop.  This coincides with many wheat pesticide applications across the plains and is a great time to put CoRoN in the tank.

CoRoN 25-0-0 .5B is a controlled-release liquid fertilizer with readily available nitrogen for your wheat crop.  CoRoN’s unique formulation stays wet longer, allowing more nitrogen to be taken into the plant.  With this, there is minimal volatilization or crystallization on the leaf surface, which in turn stays visible on the leaf long after other nitrogen products are gone.

These properties make CoRoN an ideal tank-mix partner for many crop protection products.  Many trials have shown the benefits of using CoRoN in conjunction with your pesticide applications.  The NDSU trial information above shows the advantage of not only using CoRoN to help with crop response, but also bumping yield, test weight, and protein.  Ask your local Helena representative how CoRoN can help with your fertility program in 2016.

- Joe Janecke, Northwest Division Product Manager