US Farmers Using Less Fertilizer

[Lazy J Farms Feed & Hay]

This was just released by "The Fertilizer Institute" regarding the use of fertilizer in crop production and how it compares with yields over the past 30 years.

1980-2010: U.S. CORN PRODUCTION NEARLY DOUBLES USING SLIGHTLY FEWER NUTRIENTS

I like this from the first paragraph of the press release:

Specifically, in 1980, farmers grew 6.64 billion bushels of corn using 3.2 pounds of
nutrients (nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium) for each bushel and in 2010 they grew 12.45
billion bushels using 1.6 pounds of nutrients per bushel produced. In total, this represents an
87.5 percent increase in production with 4 percent fewer nutrients during that same timeframe.

The US farmer is doing more with less!!! WOO HOO!!!!!!!

Jim

 

[ll]

!

 

[Erica]

Maybe they can make a corn that contains no nutrients at all! Then there'll be no need for those pesky troubling soil inputs...

Not at all meaning to be rude, but it's hard to see this as a good trend. As we develop lower-input higher-yield farming we reduce nutrients in our food and have to add vitamins and minerals later on. We might be able to modify corn to grow on little but water and sunlight, but it won't have much in the way of nutrition.

Hence the slow food trend... But congratulations on the astonishing feat of plant-breeding, which I'm sure makes appealing maths.

 

[KenK]

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Can you direct me to some research that supports this statement?

 

[Katy]

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Well you are rude and we farmers take pride in the food products we grow....which are full of nutrients. How they are processed by the middlemen is where nutrients are lost. I think the point of his post went whoosh right over your head....we grow better crops with less fertilizer now than ever before.

 

[Lazy J Farms Feed & Hay]

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Thanks a lot for being a Debbie Downer!!!!!

This should be shouted as a success for the American Farmer and for the environment.

 

[Katy]

Lazy J Farms Feed & Hay :

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Thanks a lot for being a Debbie Downer!!!!!

This should be shouted as a success for the American Farmer and for the environment.

Since she's from Australia maybe she doesn't care about US agriculture.

 

[Erica]

No, I wasn't being rude at all. You're talking about a process of development in agriculture that seems to me to have an increasingly obvious down-side. Why not allow me to raise that as a point? (Or are anti-GMO threads the only ones that are allowed to be sabotaged by negativity?)

Anyone reading this can do their own research if they need citations; this is a chat forum, not a peer reviewed journal.

 

[Lazy J Farms Feed & Hay]

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The point of the post was to refute the repeated comments of how un-sustainable modern agriculture is with statements like "Its takes too much artificial fertilizer" and others.

Post away with the negativity if you wish, Katy and I will just have to meet the misinformation with the truth.

Jim

 

[Katy]

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Don't see how using less fetilizer can be considered a down-side to growing crops......which was the point of the OP's post.

There are too many misinformed people who have no knowledge or connection to agriculture that continue to believe everything they see or read on the internet as truth when in fact a lot of it is nothing more than bunk put out by groups with their own agenda against American agriculture.