Crop Nutritional Needs

By A.M. Johnston and N.R. Usherwood

gricultures greatest challenge is to season demands of a high yielding crop. continue to increase crop yields per Research has shown that in a particular unit of land farmed to meet the food season under optimum growing and response requirements of a growing world population. conditions, recovery of applied nutrients can It is no secret that proper nutrient manage- be as high as 70 percent for nitrogen (N), 20 ment has been and continues to be critical to percent for phosphorus (P), and 30 percent advances in crop production. for potassium (K). Much of With improved yields, Understanding site-specic the unused nutrients will be removal of nutrients has nutrient requirements and available for subsequent increased. Effective and efoptimum rate, time, and crops, but the fact remains cient resupply of nutrients method of nutrient applicathat soils must be high in soil requires access to reliable tion is essential for improvfertility to keep nutrient information about crop yield ing crop yield, quality, and supply from being a yieldlevels, nutrient requirements, protability while protecting limiting factor. and nutrient removal. the environment. By utilizing uptake valYields have increased ues and crop yields, it is possignicantly in North America during the sible to estimate nutrients removed from the past 40 years. For example, from 1961 to eld by harvested crops. Nutrient removal 2000, average corn yields increased 1.9 bu/A estimates for North American crop classes are per year in the U.S. and 1.1 bu/A per year in presented in Table 1. Crops remove approxCanada. Wheat yields increased 0.4 bu/A per imately 19, 7, and 11 million tons of N, P2O5 , year in both the U.S. and Canada. As crop and K2O, respectively, each year from the yields increase, so do nutrient requirements. elds of North America. Forages are responSoils must be fertile to meet the growing- sible for over one-fth of the P removal and half the K removal by all TABLE 1. Nutrient removal by major crops in the U.S. and Canada. crops. The high level of nutrient removal by forage N P2O5 K2O N P2O5 K2O crops underscores the imporCrop type Million tons % of total tance of nutrient replacement to maintain high yields and U.S. (1998-2000 avg) extend longevity and quality Field crops 11.9 4.4 4.4 74 76 46 of the forage stand. Forage crops 3.7 1.2 4.7 23 22 49
Specialty crops Total Canada (2000) Field crops Forage crops Total 0.4 16.0 0.1 5.7 0.5 9.6 3 100 2 100 5 100

1.9 0.6 2.5

0.7 0.2 0.9

0.6 0.7 1.3

77 23 100

81 19 100

46 54 100

Dr. Johnston is PPI Western Canada Director, located at Saskatoon, Saskatchewan; email: ajohnston@ppi-ppic.org. Dr. Usherwood is formerly PPI Southeast Director, now retired.

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Better Crops/Vol. 86 (2002, No. 2)