By Alice McFarlane

New online nutrient calculator uses Prairie data

May 9, 2023 | 4:17 PM

Farmers and agronomists have a new tool at their disposal that will help them get a more complete picture of the nutrient requirements of key crops grown across Western Canada.

Two University of Saskatchewan (USask) soil scientists have just put the finishing touches on a new Prairie Nutrient Removal Calculator, an online tool that provides important information to help make on-farm fertilizer decisions during the 2023 growing season.

Researchers Drs. Fran Walley and Rich Farrell led the three-year project. Other collaborators came in the form of industry representatives and numerous producer groups.

Walley said it’s not a new concept, but the calculator contains local data collected from commercial farms in Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Alberta. The calculator provides nutrient removal rates for commonly grown Prairie crops.

“We know how valuable nutrient removal guidelines are, but the most recent guidelines available are from 2001,” Walley said. “A lot has changed in the last few decades with different crops, genetics, management strategies and crop rotations. So we set about to revise the existing guidelines to ensure the information was more relevant and reflective for today.”

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Walley said collecting new data was a challenge especially during the COVID-19 pandemic. In the end more than 2,200 grain and biomass samples representing 14 different crops were collected.

“We really wanted to get a handle on what the nutrient uptake and removal was for commonly grown crops in commercial fields,” she said. And that’s where the value of collaboration really kicked in.”

The research team enlisted agronomists in Saskatchewan and Alberta through Lyle Cowell of Nutrien Ag Solutions, field staff in Manitoba through John Heard with Manitoba Agriculture, field staff with the Saskatchewan Ministry of Agriculture, and researchers at Saskatchewan Agri-ARM sites.

The team collected on-farm samples in 2020, 2021 and 2022.

To measure how many nutrients the crop takes up from the soil, plant tissue was collected at a growth stage when it was expected the plant was using the greatest amount of nutrients from the soil. Tissue was dried, crushed and analyzed for nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, and sulphur as well as copper, boron, and zinc.

As for how much nutrients were removed when the harvested grain leaves the field, seed samples were collected at harvest, along with information on crop yield, and analyzed for the same range of nutrients.

Both researchers admitted while nutrient uptake provides interesting information, it’s nutrient removal that’s a more accurate, easier number to determine. It’s the one that’s most valuable for producers and it’s the information that drives the new calculator.

The nutrient removal calculator estimates the nutrients removed in the harvested seed or grain. (submitted photo/USask)

Farrell said the next step was using the data to power the new online nutrient removal calculator. The calculator also included including micronutrients that are gaining more interest and monitoring for potential deficiency.

“The calculator reflects the new data that was collected from 2020 to 2022 and provides a very sensible and conservative estimate of nutrient removal,” Farrell said. “Even though plants only use small amounts of copper, boron and zinc, they aren’t in the soil in large amounts so it’s important to also measure their removal rates.”

The online calculator is now available at prairienutrientcalculator.info.

The researchers also credit postdoctoral fellow Gazali Issah for his work on this project.

Funding was provided by the Western Grains Research Foundation, Alberta Wheat Commission, Prairie Oat Growers Association, Saskatchewan Canola Development Commission, Saskatchewan Flax Development Commission, Saskatchewan Wheat Development Commission, with logistical support provided by Nutrien Ag Solutions and Manitoba Agriculture and Resource Development.

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alice.mcfarlane@pattisonmedia.com

On Twitter: @farmnewsNOW