Modern agriculture has given growers a variety of ways to apply fertilizers. All of them have the goal of providing nutrition when it’s needed, minimizing the risk of loss, and making it easily available when crops need it. Sidedress application is the agricultural practice of fertilizing crops once the plants have begun growing, adding soil nutrients that help growth.
Let’s look at what sidedress is, how it works, and what the research shows. The Five W Questions – who, what, when, where, why – can help you make your decisions on sidedress application.
Who
Sidedress fertilizers are ideal for providing in-season nutrition and supporting strong plant growth. Sidedress application is especially effective in supplementing or restoring nitrogen, but that’s not all! Sidedress application can be used for many other nutrients.
What
By having the right nutrients at the correct developmental times, crops grow stronger, produce higher yields, and can be more resistance to drought, pests, and disease.
When
For example, nitrogen easily becomes tied up in the soil or leaches away through runoff where it’s unusable. Nitrogen is also more necessary at particular growth stages over others.
Signs of nitrogen deficiencies may not be immediately evident, so sidedressing nitrogen during the growth season helps to restore it when crops need it most.
Application of nitrogen (and other nutrients) depends on the crop, microbial activity, nutrient content, drainage, and other factors.
Where
Sidedress applications should be to moist soil, and it should happen prior to root expansion to avoid damage. To avoid snapping off plants, growers should apply nutrients before they are too tall for the toolbar.
Why
This is the meat of the issue. Sidedress fertilizer application is ideal for adding nitrogen at key stages for wheat, soybeans, corn, and other row crops. This gives the crops what they need to reach their full growth potential, delivered right to them in the soil.
It’s also helpful for restoring nitrogen after heavy rainfall or other leaching events.
Plus, sidedress fertilizer can also provide other beneficial nutrients, including supplement nutrition that wasn’t provided at planting time.
For orchards, this work particularly well for coordinating fruit development with nutrient application.
The best AgroLiquid fertilizers for sidedress application include:
- PrimAgro N, P, K, and C-TECH
- High NRG-N
- N-Response
- eNhance
- Pro-Germinator
- Sure-K
- Kalibrate
- accesS
- LiberateCa
AgroLiquid’s liquid fertilizer lineup helps address the possible deficiencies that can occur during the growing season. From essential macronutrients like phosphorus and potassium to vital micronutrients, our products can cover nutritional gaps.
Check out our research
We’ve researched multiple fertilizer application methods and conducted extensive research to help farmers optimize their nitrogen fertilizer for corn: see the results.
With crop yields continually on the rise, nutrients such as nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium are being used up in growers’ soils—but so are micronutrients. Planting time is the perfect opportunity to replenish micronutrients, as well as primary nutrients. Here’s info about how to replace micronutrients and primary nutrients at planter time, using corn and soybeans as examples. Read the study.
Knowing how to use phosphorus fertilizer on crops, and knowing what to expect, can help you increase yields and get the most out of your fertilizer program. Let’s take a look at the research on how to use phosphorus fertilizer.
To develop a liquid fertilizer sidedress program to boost yields, work with an AgroLiquid agronomist, and we’ll help you develop a custom nutrition plan to produce the best yields possible.
