Variable rate Fertilizing

Nitrogen only where there is still a crop to feed

The rape went in two weeks late, the winter dropped below minus 30, and spring left water standing in the low spots. By April, almost half the field had no crop on it at all.

With wheat you can feed a thin stand back to life. With rape you cannot. Every kilogram of fertilizer on that dead ground would have been money poured straight into the soil.

So the map got two zones: full rate where the rape survived, nothing where it did not. One pass, and the spreader put down half the nitrogen a blanket application would have. That is 835 kilograms of CAN he never had to spread, about €300 at his fertilizer price, and every kilogram that did go out landed on living crop.

And the field he had half written off still delivered. Adrians budgeted the nitrogen for a 1.2 t/ha yield. At harvest it gave 2.5 t/ha, and 2.8 counting only the area that carried crop.