- Location
- the brecks norfolk
I've always found urea to be just as accurate as blue bag. Using the app for settings I have never been more than a few kgs out.
Urea VS AN
- Thread starter ajd132
- Start date
- Location
- Moreton-in-Marsh, Glos
I’ve been using Urea ever since Seabright started importing it in the 80’s.
In the early days, I used it as the first dressing, switching to AN for the main dressing. The reason being, less leaching early on and we were warned about volatilisation when used later.
However, it was so much cheaper than AN that I soon switched to using 100% urea and no AN.
Twice due to AN surprisinly and very really being cheaper than Urea have I switched back to it and on both occasions my yields dropped!
Sometimes it can be too cold for Urea to work fast enough as an early dressing, so I now use Doubletop as my first dressing to get an early response and my Sulphur on at the same time. But switch back to Urea as the main dressing.
I want it all on by about 7th April and there isno need whatsoever for a third dressing unless it’s for milling. Even then, I’ll still use Urea in mid to late May.
Urea is slower acting and will last much longer than AN. I am fairly certain there is a carry over from the year of application to the following year too. Even after a very wet winter like we have just had!
It seems to me that if the crop hasn’t used up the Urea in the previous crop, it uses it up on the following one.
I’m also convinced that RB209 rates are about 20% too high here. If i try to use its rate, my yields go down every time!
According to RB209, it is impossible for me to get the high yields that I do, because it says I’m using far to little of it!
Yet I seem to get the yield without the rates it suggests.
My neighbour uses AN and works on RB209 levels. Yet our own yields are higher using at least 20% less N/ha.
I Combine both our own and his crops, it is all yield logged by the Combine, so I know exactly what each farm is doing.
So, in my experience and to my mind, any bad mouthing of Urea by any manufacturers of AN is a load of Bollox and purely on environmental grounds, they should be utterly ashamed of themselves!
In the early days, I used it as the first dressing, switching to AN for the main dressing. The reason being, less leaching early on and we were warned about volatilisation when used later.
However, it was so much cheaper than AN that I soon switched to using 100% urea and no AN.
Twice due to AN surprisinly and very really being cheaper than Urea have I switched back to it and on both occasions my yields dropped!
Sometimes it can be too cold for Urea to work fast enough as an early dressing, so I now use Doubletop as my first dressing to get an early response and my Sulphur on at the same time. But switch back to Urea as the main dressing.
I want it all on by about 7th April and there isno need whatsoever for a third dressing unless it’s for milling. Even then, I’ll still use Urea in mid to late May.
Urea is slower acting and will last much longer than AN. I am fairly certain there is a carry over from the year of application to the following year too. Even after a very wet winter like we have just had!
It seems to me that if the crop hasn’t used up the Urea in the previous crop, it uses it up on the following one.
I’m also convinced that RB209 rates are about 20% too high here. If i try to use its rate, my yields go down every time!
According to RB209, it is impossible for me to get the high yields that I do, because it says I’m using far to little of it!
Yet I seem to get the yield without the rates it suggests.
My neighbour uses AN and works on RB209 levels. Yet our own yields are higher using at least 20% less N/ha.
I Combine both our own and his crops, it is all yield logged by the Combine, so I know exactly what each farm is doing.
So, in my experience and to my mind, any bad mouthing of Urea by any manufacturers of AN is a load of Bollox and purely on environmental grounds, they should be utterly ashamed of themselves!
Grain protein levels after harvest will tell you retrospectively if you put enough N on. It will always be skewed by unusually high or low yields that will dilute or concentrate protein respectively.
Better N use efficiency is one of my long term goals.
Better N use efficiency is one of my long term goals.
- Location
- Bedfordshire
Its the spreading pattern, not the rate, that is the potential issue at wider spreading widths.
- Location
- Bedfordshire
I've asked the question several times, and IIFC someone asked it at the AICC conference and I don't think anybody knows.
Its not whether it would dissolve that is the issue but whether it has the same effect on grain N (or the grain N test!?).
perhaps we would need to apply earlier?
ollie989898
Member
I would not follow anything the Germans did simply because they are led by the Green lobby who will ban anything irrespective of how much sense it makes. These are the people who manufacture EU rules which means your hair dryer can't be more than 1200 watts or something stupid.
- Location
- Bedfordshire
Interesting, but what else are you doing differently?
Trials have never shown a difference between AN or Urea other than protein.
If I put on 80Kg N per dose with AN, only 40kg is immediately available, is this really going to cause problems in the crop due to rapid uptake?
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SilliamWhale
Member
You can usually get better efficiency if you put less on. That 4th ton is expensive relative to the first 2.5-3!!
SilliamWhale
Member
You have a hair dryer? ?
I still get a better net farm margin from putting more N on. I try and sit at the left hand end of zone B
I see where you're coming from though. Would you say you're in zone A?
- Location
- Moreton-in-Marsh, Glos
Both farms are mixed and use FYM. Our is put on before OSR and fertiliser is reduced to account for the N in the muck. My neighbour’s agronomist takes no account of any N in his muck, so on some (but not all!) of his fields, he could have gone over the N Response curve.
Niether farms apply P&K fertilers. My neighbour relying totally of FYM to provide this when he applies it, every 3-4 years to each field.
Glenside Group started testing this farm with Albrecht testing about 15 years ago. This showed that this area is very high in Iron (Iron to excess). It proved that after decades of applying TSP, the Iron, combined with Calcium had locked up all the P and that we had an enormous bank of locked up P. The Iron acts as a catalyst on locking up the P, because it forms highly insoluble Calcium Phospate (which is what out teeth are made of). K levels are naturally quite high on most of the farm and the muck that we use every 3 years is enough to maintain the levels we need.
So we stopped using any P&K fertiliser whatsoever, creating a huge cost saving. To unlock the P, we apply Sulphur in the form of Doubletop, which breaks the cation bond between the Calcium And Phosphate and releases it.
To act as a rootball stimulantand to help the crop capture Phosphate as it is released, we apply a Glenside product called Marriphite. This is a seaweed extract + Phosphite (Nutriphite). But @snarling bee , you might have a point because like @ajd132 suggests, I’m fairly certain it also contains molasses, which might be adding something to the party To make the urea work better. We use 3 litres/ha of Marriphite, split in 2 doses in the spring (T0 and T1 or 2).
My neighbour still sticks to RB209 using Doubletop and AN, but does sometimes use Nutriphite on his crops.
The Phosphite within Marriphite is an extremely cheap way of buying Nutriphite.
My neighbour also uses 100% Min-TIL, whereas we have given up on it due to Blackgrass and have returned to Ploughing To help control it. Having got it back under control, we have now started experimenting with No-TIL. My level of BG control is better than my neighbour. So that might account for some of the higher yields we get. But on this land here, I’m certain that Urea is as good, if not better than AN.
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- Location
- Moreton-in-Marsh, Glos
I’d strongly suggest that Area C is much, much shorter than your graph shows. I think that there is hardly any flat spot at all.
- Location
- Bedfordshire
Your efficiency will go up if you put less on, doesn't make the margin better though in most cases.
EDIT: typing at same time I think.
Your N efficiency is best half way down part A is it not? Your economic efficiency is in part B.
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Great, really interesting post. We have also stopped applying soluble p and k. We do use some chicken muck and finrophos though. There must be huge amounts of locked up P in these hanslope soils. With better nutrient and soil management we should be able to unlock this.
- Location
- Bedfordshire
No he probably hasn't. but the same stupid rules apply to kettles, vacuum cleaners, toasters and light bulbs.
- Location
- Bedfordshire
We have excessively high calcium but also high iron, so this is an interesting post.
We use Doubletop usually.
How does Marriphite help the problem when it is applied to the crop not the ground?
- Location
- Lincolnshire
It was more a case of if I get uninhibited urea for melting what's the check to make sure I have added an inhibitor?
Just a way to concentrate production in fewer hands. Will I need to add an inhibitor to the 1500 cube of digestate I'll be using? Stupid green sods have learnt nothing from the neonic debacle and won't until they are hungry.
I agree. The curve doesn't ever really flatten out, it's more of a much shallower gradient at the peak.
That's a good way of describing it
- Location
- Moreton-in-Marsh, Glos
I suppose that applying the Marriphite at T0 and T1 means that some of it does hit the ground before the canopy has got too great. But, I’m not sure if what Increases the size of rootball a of the crop is by the Marriphite being soils applied or via the crop leaves.
It was research by Harper Adams that showed a doubling of the rootball, when applying the seaweed part of Marriphite.
I’m generally a bit cautious in believing a lot of these snake oil muck and magic type products.
However, it is what is recommended to me and it does seem to work well. One thing that Marriphyte does seem to help with is any sort of backward looking crop. It’s like paracetamol for plants!
I am wondering if it is something in the Marriphite that is helping me get the yields I do, using at least 20% less urea than should be necessary.
I used to apply the Sulphur as a liquid added to T0 and T1 as well. It absolutely stank and Mrs Two Tone almost banned me from coming into the house, when I used it! Non farming neighbours would ring up complaining about the rotten egg smell!
I had noticed that early applications of Urea sometimes were too slow to work in a cold Spring to wake the crop up fast enough. Especially in Hybrid Winter Barley to prevent it going Yellow.
My neighbour had been using Doubletop as his first top dressing and his crops got going faster than mine in cold Springs. So this is why I switched to using Doubletop as the first top dressing here.
If you have very high Iron and high Calcium soils and you’ve been using TSP fertilisers or blends, most of it will have been locked up. I‘m not sure if it is the case now, but SOYL would keep recommending that your soils are low of P and suggest you put even more on. Albrecht not only tells you what is there and available, but what is there but locked up, which can be made available.
It saved me so much money that after 10 years, I was able to afford to buy a brand new Combine, instead of the usual 2nd hand ones we always used to buy!
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