A variety of factors which have contributed to higher prices of gasoline have also pushed up costs of crop production, especially the costs of fertilizer and crop protectants, as well as the cost of fuel for tillage and crop cultivation.

You are planting the most expensive crop ever, and that record will stand until at least next spring. The cost of hydrocarbons will change agricultural practices, and may have impacted cropping rotation this spring. In the past year, USDA surveyed farmers about their fertilizer and chemical use on field crops. Let’s take a look at the 2005 numbers, and compare them to 1995, when corn prices were rising up though $3.00 and input prices held a lesser significance.

USDA’s 2005 Crop Chemical Survey provides a good baseline for any changes you might make in your 2006 practices. But to put 2005 in perspective, compared it with your 1995 crop chemical use practices.

Corn fertilizer:

96% of the 2005 corn crop received a nitrogen application that averaged 138 pounds per acre. That was accompanied by an average of 58 pounds of phosphate applied on 81% of corn acres and 84 pounds of potash on 65% of corn acres. Regarding nitrogen, application in the Cornbelt ranged from a low of 92% of the Iowa acres to 100% of corn acres in Indiana. Ten years earlier, fertilizer application rates were 130 pounds of N, 56 pounds of P and 78 pounds of K per acre. Nitrogen was spread on 97% of the 64 million acres of corn in 1995.

Corn herbicide:

97% of the corn received a herbicide application, and 66% of that was atrazine, applied at 1.133 pounds per acre. 31% of corn was sprayed with glyphosate (Roundup), up from 19% in 2004. Of the 76.4 million acres in primary corn-growing states, herbicides were used on 97% of the acreage, with total use at 157.575 million pounds. In 1995, 167.6 million pounds of herbicides were used on 97% of the corn acres and 65% of the herbicide used was atrazine.

Comparatively, 4.849 million pounds of insecticides were used on 23% of the corn acres in 2005. In 1995, 13.457 million pounds of insecticides were spread on 27% of the corn acreage.

For other pest management practices in corn, nationally, USDA reports no-till or minimum tillage practices were incorporated on 62 percent of the corn acreage in the prevention of pests, while 80 percent of the planted acreage was rotated with some other crop(s) over the past 3 years to avoid pests. Scouting for weeds was used on 86 percent of the farms growing corn and on 90 percent of the corn acres.

Soybean herbicides:

98% of soybean acres were sprayed with herbicides, and 88% of the acres treated received glyphosate (Roundup). Herbicide applications averaged 1.1 pounds per acre, on 63 million acres nationally, and 77.187 million pounds used. In 1995, an average of 97% of the soybean acreage was treated with herbicides and glyphosate applied to 20%.

Soybean fungicide:

In 2005 the appearance of Asian soybean rust prompted farmers to apply 6 different fungicides to 4% of soybean acreage, compared to 4 products applied to 2% of 2004 acres. In 1995, fungicide application was insignificant.

Soybean insecticides:

14% of soybean acreage was treated with an insecticide in 2005, but in 1995, the treated acreage was only 2%.

Summary:

The largest reduction of inputs in the past ten years has been the use of insecticides, with significant cuts in volume applied on both corn and soybeans. However, with acreage nearly parallel, the cutback is likely reflected by the increase potency of the product. Nitrogen application on corn has not declined significntly in the aggregate. The herbicide use has been dominated by glyphosate, with no change in the use of atrazine. Keep these numbers in mind and we’ll see how use was impacted by cost when USDA releases its 2006 statistics.

Stu Ellis

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