Take control of nitrogen and sulphur

"A lack of sulphur often reduces nitrogen use efficiency, meaning that crops cannot make the best use of nitrogen as the two nutrients work hand-in-hand."

Making the best use of nitrogen

• Nitrogen needs sulphur to work efficiently, so if you think you are seeing nitrogen deficiency it may well be caused by a lack of available sulphur.
• Manage sulphur levels proactively to maximise nitrogen use efficiency.
• There is little point in spending more money on nitrogen if you haven’t spent any on sulphur.

How to best managing your sulphur

• Crops need a regular supply of sulphur throughout the growing season, so a little and often approach to sulphur management is essential.
• Sulphur is immobile in the plant so cannot be moved from old to new leaves when it is needed, this means fresh sulphur is still needed later in the season.
• Same as nitrogen, sulphur can be readily leached through the soil so shouldn't be applied 'all at once'.

Can you afford to ignore sulphur deficiency?

• Over 90% of soil samples are deficient in sulphur
• Every £1 spent on sulphur gives £5 return in extra yield
• Sulphur increases nitrogen use efficiency, giving you more for your money and less wastage
• Sulphur deficiency this year could cost you £112/ha

"No longer will yield be the only measure of success, lower ammonia emissions will be high on everyone's agenda"

Why are ammonia emissions now so important?

• UK Agriculture has to reduce ammonia emissions by 8% of the 2005 baseline by 2020.
• Fertiliser application accounts for 23% of agricultural ammonia emissions with nitrate based fertilisers being the lowest emitters.

Reducing ammonia emissions with nitrate fertilisers

• YaraBela Axan nitrate based fertiliser has one of the lowest ammonia emissions of all nitrogen sources. ^*
• Ammonia emissions from nitrate fertilisers are below 3%.^*
• Ammonia emissions from nitrate fertilisers are half those of urea + inhibitors. ^*

Mineral fertiliser with no added chemical inhibitor

• YaraBela fertilisers already have lower emissions than urea plus an urease inhibitor so don't need to include an inhibitor.
• YaraBela fertilisers are purely mineral fertilisers without any added chemicals such as a urease inhibitors.
• Sulphur rapidly degrades urease inhibitors so adding sulphur to urea plus inhibitor is not a good idea.
• Urease inhibitors degrade during storage so should be spread as soon after application as possible.

* DEFRA, NT 2605

YaraBela fertilisers enable accurate spreading of all nutrients

• YaraBela fertilisers are all uniform whereas blends tend to be quite variable and come in different shapes, sizes and densities.
• Uneven application of nutrients can occur when spreading a blended fertiliser as a result of physical segregation
• Spreader calibration with blends is always a compromise due to the different ballistic properties of various constituents.
• Changing to a YaraBela compound fertiliser containing sulphur and nitrogen will ensure an even spread of both nutrients
• There are up to 6 times more sulphur landing sites with YaraBela Axan compared to Ammonium Sulphate.

See for yourself the effect of physical properties

Check out these short videos to see for yourself how the physical properties of fertiliser affects it's spreadability.