Sound Advice: Meeting Corn’s Nutrient Demands

In this edition of Sound Advice, Will Llewellyn, Sales Agronomist, shares his insights on how growers can meet corn’s nutrient demand all season long. Early in the crop’s life, nutrient needs increase slowly, until corn reaches the V10 to V14 window of peak nutrient demand. By the end of that window, much of the fertilizer applied since last fall has run its course. 

Fertilizer can be used or depleted through: 

• Plant uptake
• Soil tie-up
• Loss to weather conditions

But with a crop’s need for nutrients nowhere near done, growers need ways to bridge the nutrient gap and healthy, active soils can provide huge benefits. Healthy soils are rich with microbes that bring plant-available forms of key nutrients into the root zone throughout the season. By continually looking for ways to improve soil health and activate the soil’s microbiome, growers can ensure crops finish the season as strong as they started.