This is the Sugarbeet Report, bringing you the latest information from NDSU throughout the sugar beet growing season. Fertilizer prices remain high and volatile. Who knows how available fertilizer will be for next season? Daniel Kaiser, University of Minnesota Extension soil scientist, has some fertilizer insight. Daniel, why should Sugarbeet farmers be thinking about phosphorus at this time of year?

Well, just cost wise, I think, is the big thing. Availability, there's some issues with some of the manufacturers with sulfur, which is the key component for sulfuric acid. The price has shot up quite a bit, so I don't know how that's gonna impact, what we're gonna see in terms of supply going into next year, which still might be a good time to kinda start thinking about what options are potentially if there is an issue where cost is higher, you're looking at cutting back and where those spots might be. Now with Sugarbeet, I know we have some advantage because liquids, a lot of the data that Albert Sims did before he retired, they were looking at low rates of two to three gallons of ten thirty furrow being you were able to replace thirty, forty pounds of broadcast. So there's some options there, I think, that growers can look at doing in situations if you're looking at trimming back costs. You know, depending on what kind of conditions you had, if you had drought conditions and you had a poorer than average crop, I mean, there might be some residual leftover for the next year. I think it's just a good time to be looking at soil sampling going into next year. We have high fertilizer costs. Really good time to kinda look at where you can take advantage of some of what might be there in the soil to be able to reduce. And phosphorus, to me, seems to be one of the easiest ones to look at because if you look at the soil test, it's been more consistent over time. But also in terms of the predictability of where you're gonna see any sort of profitable benefit from buying a map dApp or any of the phosphorus sources. It really does tend to work pretty well in terms of an assessment tool. I think it's just a good time to kinda think of going into that and then, you know, look at maybe some of those options with, you know, some growers have switched to some of the higher cost liquids. I mean, I still talk a lot about ten thirty four o, and there seems to be some shying away from that. But the nice thing about ten thirty four o is you get a higher per unit p two zero five concentration per ton versus you do with some of those other costs. And that's the only thing I don't know with a lot of that data that Albert did previously, how much it's really tied to the rate that you're applying of phosphate. Because typically what we see with yield, whether it's corn, soybean, sugar beet, any other crop, it's the amount of nutrients that you're applying. You know, you're going and looking at your bottom line. Just look at what you're buying for nutrients with a lot of these products just to make sure it's in line with what you think you need moving forward for the crops in 2027.

What if a farmer needs phosphorus, but it's either not available or too expensive? Are there alternatives?

Well, there are other products out there. Crystal green, I know they've had a product out there. They've been really promoting heavy. I've seen it more up in the valley than anywhere else here in the Minnesota because I think there's been some work up in Canada looking at that particular product. It's a lower analysis phosphorus. It's a lower solubility, and they claim higher availability because it doesn't react with the calcium. And that's I think one of the things that if we start talking about, like, residual or leftover phosphorus, it becomes more difficult, you know, depending on where you're at, say, in Minnesota. If you've got soils that are high in calcium that tend to bind the phosphorus, you're not gonna probably see a lot of carryover if you had some leftover that wasn't utilized by the crop. I mean, I think that's what you're gonna see, some of those products. The other thing is there's quite a few companies out there selling products that are enzyme based that are supposedly able to unlock or release some of the phosphorus in the soil. There's not a lot of data out there on some of those products, so I just would kind of caution. You're If looking at diverting funds, I mean, I'm kind of at go to the basics approach with a lot of this fertility. At least cover your basics with fertilizer because we know what we're gonna get out of that. And, you know, a lot of these products or these fertilizer amendments are a nice thing to look at messing around with if you've got some expendable income, but I'm not sure how many people have expendable income right now. If you look at cost benefit on some of this, there might be bigger benefit from diverting those into some other areas. It's just a question of where you want to invest your money and at least try to make sure it's something that's gonna effectively do something for you because that money might be better off spent somewhere else.

Thanks, Daniel. Our guest has been Daniel Kaiser, University of Minnesota Extension soil scientist. This has been the Sugarbeet Report, bringing you the latest information from NDSU throughout the sugar beet growing season.