What form of N to use?

Joe Boy

Member
Location
Essex
Any advice much appreciated!!!

I have a right mix of growth stages in my wheat and barley. Some hybrid barley half way up your wellies (almost) and some much further behind. The same applies to my wheat.

I don't have any Fert booked yet but I'm keen to sort some out soon so I'm not left without.

Would it be sensible to use AN on the backwards fields and urea on the foreword crops a couple of weeks later.

I worked out the cost difference for my conventional barley 60ha ish, and a urea sulphur blend worked out £650 (6.5 tonne) cheaper than An/sulphur blend.

How many days does it take for urea to be converted. Is there a big difference in recovery as a first pass application?

The more backwards crops are on heavier wetter fields that will be slow to warm up, will this make recovery of urea worse?

I've always used liquid N before which is a 1/3 ureic 1/3 ammoniacal 1/3 nitric. But I'm keen to reduce production costs so want to try using some solid and save the liquid for the last pass only.
 

Brisel

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Midlands
Buy urea for the lot if you can get a grade you can spread evenly as it will be a lot cheaper. Because I'm on 30m tramlines on windy exposed hills I use AN based products as well as liquid. My AN stuff worked out at nearly 30% dearer than another TFF member buying granular ureas around the same time, though he is closer to a port than I am. The timing in early season means nothing. If it was really cold then yes, it might be a few days longer to get urea into the plant but growth is so slow, making the debate irrelevant IMO. Buy at the right price - that will make the most difference to you.

Remember that barley is all about keeping tillers, so don't be afraid to put 60+ kg/ha on in Feb/early March. If you look at Syngenta's fertiliser protocol for hybrid barley you won't go far wrong with that on conventional varieties too. http://www3.syngenta.com/country/uk/en/Crops/Cereals/Hyvido/Pages/HybridBarleyAgronomy.aspx

Winter hasn't really started yet either! ;)
 
I moved from liquid uan to granular urea 2 years ago saving the cost of the spreader in the first year and reducing the stress on the sprayer

apply urea earlier by a week or so

the problem with urea is in hot dry weather with little crop cover on high ph land

much of the world uses urea only the uk uses a big proportion of an

an has more storage and security restrictions as it is an oxidising compound
 

franklin

New Member
I only use urea now. That being said, I could be tempted for some AN this year just to do some split field trials for the "late bag" slot for the milling wheats.
 

franklin

New Member
the problem with urea is in hot dry weather with little crop cover on high ph land

Yes, I dont like spreading it on bare land, or crops like linseed, later on. So we have been putting the full does on crops like spring barley and linseed onto the seedbed and drilling into it to mix into the soil. Seems to be working ok.
 

shakerator

Member
Location
LINCS
I have gone back to AN now as I think it's more flexible. No OSR or winter barley though that is the main reason

Sometimes do feel urea "disappears" although that's entirely subjective
 

BigBarl

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
South Notts
With urea as cheap as it is at the moment I would buy as much urea as you can to put on everything early on an then some AN for the last dressing when it is hopefully warmer. i would also look at using nitrogen sulphur products later on in the season as opposed to straight ammonium nitrate. Something like CF single top. Reason being is sulphur leaches as badly as N, so why not keep topping up both?
 

robbie

Member
BASIS
After discussing the merits of an v urea in the the Fert price thread that's what I've done, I'm using 33-30 urea/as for my first dressing on everything mid feb then urea second time through and then an for later on when it's warmer.
I've looked at it that urea is 30% cheaper so I'm upping my rates 10-15% and still saving money.
 

Joe Boy

Member
Location
Essex
When using a urea sulphur blend to apply 55kg N 17 kgs are from the ammoniacal nitrogen in the AmSol anyway so the plants are going to get some N straight away anyhow.
 

CORK

Member
I'd like to use Urea if there's a saving but it would mean more spreader passes for me.

Reason being I like to apply my P&K to the winter (and spring) crops in with the first N application in the spring. I then top up with N (CAN+Sulphur) later in the spring. I often need some NK compound later on also to keep K indices up.
 

Andy Howard

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Ashford, Kent
When using a urea sulphur blend to apply 55kg N 17 kgs are from the ammoniacal nitrogen in the AmSol anyway so the plants are going to get some N straight away anyhow.
Wouldn't buy a blend unless you want stripy fields. Been there. We use AN only on last pass as we found protein dropped on wheat with urea all the way through.
 

Joe Boy

Member
Location
Essex
I can see the two products may spread slightly differently, but surely they would still cover the ground evenly if the spreader is working correctly?
 

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