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How much fertilizer should I use on my farm? When I first started farming this was a really hard question to answer. And one reason for this was that I didn’t understand how nutrient recommendations work.
If you’re a farmer, you’ve probably heard nutrient recommendations like 100:50:25, 60:30:30, 30:15:0. But you may not know exactly how those nutrient recommendations work and how you can benefit from them on your farm.
In today’s article, I want to help you understand everything I’ve learned about nutrient targets from reading dozens of academic papers. By the end of the article, you will know everything you need to know to find the right amount of nutrients for your farm.
How do fertilizer targets work?
The first thing I want to do is to help you understand those numbers. What does a 100:50:25 mean? Well, it’s just NPK! If somebody tells you that you should follow a 100:50:25 fertilizer plan, then they are suggesting that you should apply 100 kg nitrogen, 50 kg phosphorus and 25 kg potassium to every hectare of your farm. If we changed it to 100:50:10, then that would just mean that nitrogen and phosphorus stay the same, while potassium is reduced from 25 to 10 kg per hectare.
That’s all! Easy isn’t it? Now that you understand how nutrient targets work, let me show you three ways to find the correct nutrient target for your farm.
Way 1: Calculate on your own
The first way is to calculate the nutrient target yourself. To calculate a nutrient target on your own, you need to consider your crop, the weather, your soil and the seed you are planting. Some university professors spend their whole life on finding the best way to calculate nutrient targets! I don’t recommend doing this because it’s really, really hard.
Way 2: Call the Kisan Call Center
A much easier way to find a good nutrient target for your farm is to make use of government resources like asking your local KVK or reading through a cultivation guide produced by your state’s agriculture department. However, my favorite government resource by far is the Kisan Call Center, which you can call at this number: 1800-180-1551.
The call center is 100 free, available in 22 languages and open every day from 6 AM to 10 PM. It’s a great way to get helpful advice and find the right nutrient target for your farm.
Way 3: Merry Nutrient Calculator
The Kisan Call Center is an amazing resource, especially because it supports so many different languages and crops. But if you’re a cotton farmer there’s one more resource I can recommend. I have built a small nutrient calculator to make things easier for you! To get access to this tool, please download the Merry farming app from the android play store. It’s 100% free to use!
Once you have the app, please open it, navigate to the tools tab and click on the “Nutrient Target'' button at the bottom of the screen. Now you just need to give two pieces of information:
In step 1, please add the amount of cotton you expect to harvest this year per acre
In step 2, you can give some information about the health of your soil. You can get this information from a soil health card if you have it. Otherwise just use the default values.
And that’s it! In step 3, you’ll get a nutrient goal that’s perfect for your cotton farm.
Today's Merry Tips
This was my introduction to nutrient targets. Please remember that:
Nutrient targets are just quick way to say how many kilograms of NPK you should apply per hectare of your farm
The Kisan Call Center can help you find a nutrient target for your crop.
If you’re growing cotton, you can also use the Merry Farming app to set your nutrient target
Now that you have your nutrient target, you can use it to figure out how many bags of fertilizer you should buy for your field. This is going to be the topic of my next video, so please like and subscribe to get updates when that video comes out next week. Also feel free to write any questions you have in the comments below.
Merry farming!
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