Liquid fert Advice- Liquisafe and Efficient N28

Nav man

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
gloucestershire
Our agronomist only ordered 54t of liquid Fert 26 5 instead of 75t we asked them to order back in September. 21t short! which has now doubled in price.

In order to sort the requirements out for this cropping year they have proposed using Liquisafe and Efficient N28 to plug the shortfall of 21t therefore reducing farm liquid fert requirements by 30%.

First question, can these 2 products regardless of cost and quantity used produce these sort of % savings?


The missing 21t would have cost £6k when it should have been ordered and now I'm told is £11k but can only get. 24n grade.

The Liquisafe is £1700 (210L) & Efficient N28 £2300 (IBC 1000L) Total £4k

Second question- the costs savings (£7k) by using these 2 products compared to buying liquid fert at todays price seem too good to be true ? Am i missing something?

Any advice/suggestions would be very welcomed and appreciated.

Thanks
 

Ludan

Member
Our agronomist only ordered 54t of liquid Fert 26 5 instead of 75t we asked them to order back in September. 21t short! which has now doubled in price.

In order to sort the requirements out for this cropping year they have proposed using Liquisafe and Efficient N28 to plug the shortfall of 21t therefore reducing farm liquid fert requirements by 30%.

First question, can these 2 products regardless of cost and quantity used produce these sort of % savings?


The missing 21t would have cost £6k when it should have been ordered and now I'm told is £11k but can only get. 24n grade.

The Liquisafe is £1700 (210L) & Efficient N28 £2300 (IBC 1000L) Total £4k

Second question- the costs savings (£7k) by using these 2 products compared to buying liquid fert at todays price seem too good to be true ? Am i missing something?

Any advice/suggestions would be very welcomed and appreciated.

Thanks
Hi Nav man, I just wondered if you tried the efficient n28 in the end? If so, how did you get on? With the current fert prices I’m looking to give it a go. Put some on the wheat and grass in between cuts is our plan. Trying to find out any experiences with using it. Many thanks
 

Ludan

Member
It’s in the shed, I’ll keep you posted once it’s on.

1000l cost £2300 + vat
agronomist calculated @ £50 hectare.
Ah good. Where did you get it from? It seems a bit scarce.. 😬 are you putting some bagged on first then spraying it on when the crops getting away a bit? thanks
 

Bman

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Cambs Essex
Liquid safe at the end of the season if it’s dry can be counter productive as it make make less product available . This I believe has been shown in some of Agrii work last year
 

daithi

Member
what price does it work out per kg of N compared to bagged N, heard of mixing urea prills with water
From what I have been told, 20 litres of product is the same as applying 40kg N.
2.30×20= 46
46/40=£1.15 kgN
But at todays price it would be roughly £1.65 kgN
 

Ludan

Member
Agrii, ordered last year.
Current plan as 3rd app on wheat.
I’ve bought a similar product called folex mu35. I think it’s just a different brand. Do you know how rainfast this stuff is? Keeps spotting rain here so held off, but need to crack on putting it on some mowing grass!
Would you say 2 hours before rain is ok or less? Thanks
 

Ludan

Member
Iv applied some en 28 last week. Results unknown as of yet. Any1 have it on longer? Hows it going so far
What crop have you put it on? What rate did you go for? Mine only got delivered end of last week, so it’s going on now. Had some rain last night, waiting for that to dry off and I’ll get some on my wheat and grass today. What water rate are you using? Omex specify 200-250 L/ha. Other brands say less. 🧐
 

Sincock

Member
Trade
Location
Cornwall
What crop have you put it on? What rate did you go for? Mine only got delivered end of last week, so it’s going on now. Had some rain last night, waiting for that to dry off and I’ll get some on my wheat and grass today. What water rate are you using? Omex specify 200-250 L/ha. Other brands say less. 🧐
150-200 L/Ha is OK, but as always, the more water the better the coverage.


I’ve bought a similar product called folex mu35. I think it’s just a different brand. Do you know how rainfast this stuff is? Keeps spotting rain here so held off, but need to crack on putting it on some mowing grass!
Would you say 2 hours before rain is ok or less? Thanks
Folex mu35 is a different product. Different manufacturing process and contains almost twice the free urea as Efficie-N-t 28 so be careful you don't scorch the grass! E28 is rain fast in 20 minutes, I would imagine Folex mu35 would be rain fast in a couple hours so no problem there.

Our agronomist only ordered 54t of liquid Fert 26 5 instead of 75t we asked them to order back in September. 21t short! which has now doubled in price.

In order to sort the requirements out for this cropping year they have proposed using Liquisafe and Efficient N28 to plug the shortfall of 21t therefore reducing farm liquid fert requirements by 30%.

First question, can these 2 products regardless of cost and quantity used produce these sort of % savings?


The missing 21t would have cost £6k when it should have been ordered and now I'm told is £11k but can only get. 24n grade.

The Liquisafe is £1700 (210L) & Efficient N28 £2300 (IBC 1000L) Total £4k

Second question- the costs savings (£7k) by using these 2 products compared to buying liquid fert at todays price seem too good to be true ? Am i missing something?

Any advice/suggestions would be very welcomed and appreciated.

Thanks
The following I have just posted in another thread, I am being a little lazy and haven't answered specifically but feel this answers your question pretty well. There is obviously a difference between Granular applied N and liquid N but there is still an increase in efficiency to be had, just to a lesser extent compared to granular...

Granular applied N is between 40-60% efficient (on a good day). Any nitrates applied through the soil are easily taken in by the plant but remember it is a poison and requires / uses significant energy from the plant to turn NO3 into NH2. This means energy is wasted on turning the Nitrates (poison) into something useable (NH2), energy that could have been used for growing / driving yield. The typical "flush" of grow / greening you see following an application of AN, for example, is no more than the plant cells filling with water. This results in lower DM, increased risk of lodging and a significant increase in risk of disease. Granular applied N works by applying loads on in the hope that when the N is actually needed by the plant there is enough left. Take maize, roughly 40% of it's N requirement is after tasseling yet we apply N in the seed bed which means we have to apply more in the seed bed in the hope it doesn't all volatilise or leach before its needed.

We don't eat all our food for the week on a Sunday night, we need little and often. Crops are the same.

Foliar N is applied directly onto the leaf, it is extremely sticky, rain fast and slow release. Depending on the polymer content, and there is a big difference so be careful, it wont cause scorch and thanks to the form the N is supplied in, it is easily and efficiently absorbed through the leaf, no poison. The NUE of Foliar N depends on the Polymer %, the higher the percentage of Polymer the higher the NUE. The rest is Free Urea, which is no more or no less, dissolved urea. This is what causes scorch so as I said before be careful.

The attached screenshot is trial data done by the AICC (so independent) last year using KWS Extase in Crowfield. You can see a reduction in total N applied resulted in almost no change in yield across the board. 290kg N/ha from granular fertiliser yielded 11.4t/ha where as 128kg N/ha from granular and foliar yielded 11.3t/ha. There is trial data going back 15 years showing similar results in almost every crop, including grass.

Foliar N isn't going to replace all granular N and there is 100% still a place / need for it but, later applications of N can absolutely be replaced with Foliar to reduce total N applied while maintaining yields. For all the reason above and with 15 years worth of trial data, a lot of it independent, to back it up, we can say that 40kgs N/ha from granular can be replaced with just 7kgs N/ha from Efficie-N-t 28 for comparable yields. Other Foliar fertiliser are available, results will be different as they contain different Polymer and Free Urea percentages. Also beware of scorch. Efficie-N-t 28 contains 22% Polymer and 6% Free urea. Most other products contain twice the amount of free urea and therefore come with a very real scorch risk!
 

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Ludan

Member
150-200 L/Ha is OK, but as always, the more water the better the coverage.



Folex mu35 is a different product. Different manufacturing process and contains almost twice the free urea as Efficie-N-t 28 so be careful you don't scorch the grass! E28 is rain fast in 20 minutes, I would imagine Folex mu35 would be rain fast in a couple hours so no problem there.


The following I have just posted in another thread, I am being a little lazy and haven't answered specifically but feel this answers your question pretty well. There is obviously a difference between Granular applied N and liquid N but there is still an increase in efficiency to be had, just to a lesser extent compared to granular...

Granular applied N is between 40-60% efficient (on a good day). Any nitrates applied through the soil are easily taken in by the plant but remember it is a poison and requires / uses significant energy from the plant to turn NO3 into NH2. This means energy is wasted on turning the Nitrates (poison) into something useable (NH2), energy that could have been used for growing / driving yield. The typical "flush" of grow / greening you see following an application of AN, for example, is no more than the plant cells filling with water. This results in lower DM, increased risk of lodging and a significant increase in risk of disease. Granular applied N works by applying loads on in the hope that when the N is actually needed by the plant there is enough left. Take maize, roughly 40% of it's N requirement is after tasseling yet we apply N in the seed bed which means we have to apply more in the seed bed in the hope it doesn't all volatilise or leach before its needed.

We don't eat all our food for the week on a Sunday night, we need little and often. Crops are the same.

Foliar N is applied directly onto the leaf, it is extremely sticky, rain fast and slow release. Depending on the polymer content, and there is a big difference so be careful, it wont cause scorch and thanks to the form the N is supplied in, it is easily and efficiently absorbed through the leaf, no poison. The NUE of Foliar N depends on the Polymer %, the higher the percentage of Polymer the higher the NUE. The rest is Free Urea, which is no more or no less, dissolved urea. This is what causes scorch so as I said before be careful.

The attached screenshot is trial data done by the AICC (so independent) last year using KWS Extase in Crowfield. You can see a reduction in total N applied resulted in almost no change in yield across the board. 290kg N/ha from granular fertiliser yielded 11.4t/ha where as 128kg N/ha from granular and foliar yielded 11.3t/ha. There is trial data going back 15 years showing similar results in almost every crop, including grass.

Foliar N isn't going to replace all granular N and there is 100% still a place / need for it but, later applications of N can absolutely be replaced with Foliar to reduce total N applied while maintaining yields. For all the reason above and with 15 years worth of trial data, a lot of it independent, to back it up, we can say that 40kgs N/ha from granular can be replaced with just 7kgs N/ha from Efficie-N-t 28 for comparable yields. Other Foliar fertiliser are available, results will be different as they contain different Polymer and Free Urea percentages. Also beware of scorch. Efficie-N-t 28 contains 22% Polymer and 6% Free urea. Most other products contain twice the amount of free urea and therefore come with a very real scorch risk!
Thanks Sincock some great, useful information. I’ve been struggling to find out much about the folex mu35 product. I’ve emailed omex as their product info is fairly basic. I did order efficient n28 but likely due to limited supplies I’ve been supplied this instead. Which I’m happy with, but just like to know some of the do’s and do not’s.
This is the guidance that I found on their website. I believe this is a slow release foliar N like efficient n28? They do another n product which might have the extra free urea you mention of?
I put a bit on a headland then unfortunately had a random heavy shower of rain half hour later. Will it simply wash to the soil and roots do you think? I don’t know if I should spray the headland again.. might have to wait and see with that one!! Does the free urea not volatise at all?
Thanks again for your advice.
 

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Sincock

Member
Trade
Location
Cornwall
Thanks Sincock some great, useful information. I’ve been struggling to find out much about the folex mu35 product. I’ve emailed omex as their product info is fairly basic. I did order efficient n28 but likely due to limited supplies I’ve been supplied this instead. Which I’m happy with, but just like to know some of the do’s and do not’s.
This is the guidance that I found on their website. I believe this is a slow release foliar N like efficient n28? They do another n product which might have the extra free urea you mention of?
I put a bit on a headland then unfortunately had a random heavy shower of rain half hour later. Will it simply wash to the soil and roots do you think? I don’t know if I should spray the headland again.. might have to wait and see with that one!! Does the free urea not volatise at all?
Thanks again for your advice.
I doubt there is much info on many of the other foliar N products as they are all pretty new to the market. 3 / 4 years ago Efficie-N-t 28 was probably the only foliar available and in the last 12 months alone there have been at least 5 new products released.

A great question re free urea volatilisation... we know that with only 6% free urea in efficient 28 you will be applying 1.5 kgs free urea / ha This is a tiny amount over 1ha. As urea provides N as an amide (NH2) it is very easily and very quickly absorbed through the plant leaf, therefore, it will be absorbed / used before it can volatilise into the atmosphere. With Folex mu35, you will be applying 2.9kgs free urea / ha which will is still low and again likely to be used before it volatilises. That's the beauty of urea, its attached to a carbon (technically making it organic) and the N is in amide form which is literally the building blacks of protein.

Advice is always very similar but 20L / ha = 25kgs / ha = 7kgs N / ha and will replace, more or less, 40kgs N / ha from granular.
Applying more than this in a single does will see diminishing returns. The Nitrogen has a half life which means after 4 weeks you will have used 95% of the 7kgs N applied.

Foliar N is great but it needs to be used properly or you wont see the benefits / get the return on investment so whatever you are using it's worth doing your homework 👍
 

Ludan

Member
I doubt there is much info on many of the other foliar N products as they are all pretty new to the market. 3 / 4 years ago Efficie-N-t 28 was probably the only foliar available and in the last 12 months alone there have been at least 5 new products released.

A great question re free urea volatilisation... we know that with only 6% free urea in efficient 28 you will be applying 1.5 kgs free urea / ha This is a tiny amount over 1ha. As urea provides N as an amide (NH2) it is very easily and very quickly absorbed through the plant leaf, therefore, it will be absorbed / used before it can volatilise into the atmosphere. With Folex mu35, you will be applying 2.9kgs free urea / ha which will is still low and again likely to be used before it volatilises. That's the beauty of urea, its attached to a carbon (technically making it organic) and the N is in amide form which is literally the building blacks of protein.

Advice is always very similar but 20L / ha = 25kgs / ha = 7kgs N / ha and will replace, more or less, 40kgs N / ha from granular.
Applying more than this in a single does will see diminishing returns. The Nitrogen has a half life which means after 4 weeks you will have used 95% of the 7kgs N applied.

Foliar N is great but it needs to be used properly or you wont see the benefits / get the return on investment so whatever you are using it's worth doing your homework 👍
So I’ve applied 25 litres/ ha of the folex mu35 to both my mowing grass and winter wheat. This was roughly 2 weeks ago. The wheat looks well but that’s mostly due to some bagged N that went on a few weeks prior. I can’t say that the grass is responding much to the application. It’s growing but looks quite pale in colour. I put sewage cake on first, and where it went a bit heavy, the grass is dark green and looks more bulky. Does it need another application to top it up, or will it slowly respond? Has anyone else using foliar N seen any results yet? Thanks
 

Sincock

Member
Trade
Location
Cornwall
So I’ve applied 25 litres/ ha of the folex mu35 to both my mowing grass and winter wheat. This was roughly 2 weeks ago. The wheat looks well but that’s mostly due to some bagged N that went on a few weeks prior. I can’t say that the grass is responding much to the application. It’s growing but looks quite pale in colour. I put sewage cake on first, and where it went a bit heavy, the grass is dark green and looks more bulky. Does it need another application to top it up, or will it slowly respond? Has anyone else using foliar N seen any results yet? Thanks
A common observation...

After applying granular Nitrogen you will typically see a 'flush' of growth. Grass in particular responds quickly to any granular applied. The 'flush' of growth you see after Ammonium Nitrate, for example, is the plant taking in loads of water to try and dilute the poison you have just applied. Nitrate is a poison, well Nitrite but you need Nitrate to get Nitrite and Natures solution to pollution is dilution.

Ammonium Nitrate is also a salty fertiliser which will result in an uptake of water. I would use the example of us eating bacon... what do you do after eating salty bacon? Drink water, the plants do the same. Probably the easiest way to explain it.

To the naked eye this greening after AN suggests a positive response to the N applied and a better crop. The reality is the crop is full of water and more susceptible to lodging and disease. The latter isn't an issue with grass (it is to cereals) but the reduced DM certainly is.

Applying foliar N, which isn't poisonous or salty, will not result in an uptake of water and therefore provide no greening effect. To the naked eye it will look like there has been no response and the N hasn't worked. Less green, less fresh weight but I can promise you, you will see a difference when you analysis the grass as silage. Higher DM, increase ME, increased starch, increased sugars, higher protein (usually).

It will have worked but the grass hasn't responded as you would expect. I have attached an on farm trial we did last year in Northern Ireland that compares CAN, Efficient 28 and Urea. In each trial foliar N provided better quality grass and you will see the same.

Disclaimer... Folex mu35 is not Efficie-N-t 28, it is manufactured very differently and contains twice as much free urea so not directly comparable. The trial data has been done with Efficie-N-t 28 so again not comparable to what you have used but will give you an indication of what to expect.
 

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Ludan

Member
A common observation...

After applying granular Nitrogen you will typically see a 'flush' of growth. Grass in particular responds quickly to any granular applied. The 'flush' of growth you see after Ammonium Nitrate, for example, is the plant taking in loads of water to try and dilute the poison you have just applied. Nitrate is a poison, well Nitrite but you need Nitrate to get Nitrite and Natures solution to pollution is dilution.

Ammonium Nitrate is also a salty fertiliser which will result in an uptake of water. I would use the example of us eating bacon... what do you do after eating salty bacon? Drink water, the plants do the same. Probably the easiest way to explain it.

To the naked eye this greening after AN suggests a positive response to the N applied and a better crop. The reality is the crop is full of water and more susceptible to lodging and disease. The latter isn't an issue with grass (it is to cereals) but the reduced DM certainly is.

Applying foliar N, which isn't poisonous or salty, will not result in an uptake of water and therefore provide no greening effect. To the naked eye it will look like there has been no response and the N hasn't worked. Less green, less fresh weight but I can promise you, you will see a difference when you analysis the grass as silage. Higher DM, increase ME, increased starch, increased sugars, higher protein (usually).

It will have worked but the grass hasn't responded as you would expect. I have attached an on farm trial we did last year in Northern Ireland that compares CAN, Efficient 28 and Urea. In each trial foliar N provided better quality grass and you will see the same.

Disclaimer... Folex mu35 is not Efficie-N-t 28, it is manufactured very differently and contains twice as much free urea so not directly comparable. The trial data has been done with Efficie-N-t 28 so again not comparable to what you have used but will give you an indication of what to expect.
Thanks Sincock. Very interesting read, and makes good sense! Last years crop of grass had bagged n on it and looked really bulky. Once mown and dried a bit it seemed to reduce volume significantly! Likely all that water coming out of it!! We’re just planning the next step with our winter wheat. It had 240kg of 27n 12s to start it off, and has also had 25L/ ha of the folex mu35 2 weeks ago. Being slow release for 4-5 weeks is it best wait until then for the next dose? Or should it go on around say 3-4 weeks to make sure it’s there and available should the crop want it? Thanks again for sharing your experiences with foliar feeds.
 

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