I tend to believe that “more is better” with foods like pizza, steak, bacon, and desserts, but the reality is that most of the time the opposite is true. Even though these things are good, “more” is usually not so good.
I found this to be the case in my garden sunflowers this year. The instructions on the side of the plant fertilizer box say, “Mix one measuring cup with one gallon of water.” So if one scoop grows big sunflowers, wouldn’t two scoops grow really big sunflowers?
This year, I tried it. We had two different plantings of sunflowers. One group got two scoops and the other group got one (the recommended rate). And, as it turns out, most of the sunflowers with the smaller recommended rate ended up significantly larger. Why is that?
While far from scientific, my little study correlates with some real research being done with nitrogen (N) in corn. N is a critical nutrient in corn production and farmers, crop consultants, the Joyce Foundation, the Natural Resources Conservation Service and the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) are teaming up to find out how much is really needed.
“We are getting good data now and we’re getting guys ratcheted into a finer N rate. As tight as the economics are in agriculture, you can’t spend money on N that you do not need,” said Joe Nester, of Nester Ag Management in Bryan. “We’re trying to get a target pretty close to what the crop is going to need for optimal yield. This isn’t something that you can say, ‘We’re going to raise 160 bushel corn and we need this much N.’ That is not the case at all. This can vary by farming operation, practice, soil condition, weather, drainage and a whole bunch of different things that come into play. But with this program, farmers are learning about what affects their N and they are making some adjustments in their application with the rate and the timing of their N.”
The soil and the plant can only handle so much N, the rest leaves the soil, often in the water. In the past, when the N cost was very low, the safe bet was to add a little extra to make sure that it was not the limiting factor in corn production. High N cost and increasing awareness of the potential water quality impacts, however, have made that safe bet of the past not so safe anymore. But determining how much N is needed to maximize corn production while minimizing costs and environmental impact is not easy.
Working with farmers and EDF, Nester coordinates the On-Farm Network in part of the Lake Erie Watershed to find out how much the N application rate can be reduced without hurting corn yields. The study includes N rate test plots in the fields, soil samples, aerial imagery, corn stalk nitrate tests and yield data. This is a tremendous logistical effort that is time consuming, but it provides a fairly complete picture of how much N is needed.
Nester is working with 90 farmers in his area and the On-Farm Network is also tied in to identical projects in several other watersheds around the country. The results have been surprising in that the most productive soils are often requiring the least amount of N.
“We’re finding that the highest yielding areas of the field top out at the lowest N rate and the lowest yielding areas of the field might need more N to reach an optimum yield -- exactly opposite of what we thought before,” he said. “The reason is recoverability. In the good areas of the field, I may have three times the root system I have in the poor areas of the field so the plant can recover more N.”
These results are allowing farmers to reduce their N rates accordingly, which improves the profitability and environmental sustainability of their farms.
“We’re finding that farmers who participate in the program are reducing N use by 10% to 20% because they see that they can do this and be more profitable,” said Karen Chapman, Great Lakes regional director for EDF. “This is not an environmental program, this is an economic program. Reducing nitrogen offers an economic value to producers and they are contributing to improving water quality at the same time.”
Like my sunflower experiment, this type of research is important because there are times when more is not better and less is more. I am not yet convinced, however, that this applies to bacon.
For more information about the On-Farm Network, visit http://www.isafarmnet.com.

Matt Reese writes for Ohio’s Country Journal and resides in Baltimore, Ohio. This column is brought to you by Ohio agriculture. Contact him at mkcreese@yahoo.com.