UAN

I can tell you what what we usually end up doing all the time is taking all we take a lot of nitrate and soil sample and nitrogen soil samples.

because I, I think that the biggest question always is how much, how much is hanging around, whether it's fall in hydrous spring in hydrous or, or your, you know, maybe your broadcast UAN, how much is, is going to be hanging around.

And often the, the conditions leading into may and June, you know, they relate pretty strongly to how much is left there that you can then, you know, add or subtract onto your side dress rate.

Um, There's been a lot of efforts to try to hone side dress rates of crop canopy sensing.

And so there's certainly some in the system when going in thinking about how to apply it.

We really have targeted mostly on pre-plant applications.

We haven't done a lot of sulfur applied with our UAN at Side Dress.

The only thing I worry about that is making sure that we're able, if you're injecting mid-row, to have enough available when we need it for the plant.

DTN's latest retail survey shows seven of the eight major fertilizers moved higher compared with a month earlier.

UAN 28 led the increase of 6% to $447 a ton.

UAN 32 averaged $486, while potash reached $506 per ton.

And hydrosamonia was just shy of $1,000.

DAP averaged $939.

You mentioned August and September are usually the cheapest months to buy fertilizer, but I wanted to get some statistics, so I looked them up.

Well, there happened to be a new analysis by an ag economist covering 17 buying seasons from 2010 through 2026, and they found a seasonal price difference of 10.9% on anhydrous 8.2% on urea, and 10% on UAN.

I also looked at studies that DTN had, and they reported buying in September instead of May saved an average of $88 a ton and $57 per ton for UAN.

So your observations are supported by the data, especially for the nitrogen fertilizers.

I'm just kind of curious, what have you found this year? Are you changing strategies at all? Do you see anything different for this upcoming growing season?

Side dress, vertigate, top dress are a few examples.

And he says, hey, if you're dealing with weeds, how about a pre-emerge weed spray in the spring? That'd be a great way to apply 10 gallons of UAN or 32 percent, he says.

So just over 70 percent of strip tillers side dress nitrogen, while 40 percent apply it at plant.

Another 40 percent apply it in the spring with the strips and 26 percent in the fall with the strips.

So, I'd be looking at that.

I would look at trying to err more towards urea production, some more UAN production.

And I would give those funds to new companies.

And it doesn't mean you have to just give them a blank check and just take the money.

Fertilizer prices continue to be mostly higher, according to prices tracked by DTN for the second week of October 2021.

UAN32 was 6% more expensive looking back a month.

Both anhydrous and UAN28 were 5% higher compared to a month ago.

The pressure on fertilizer markets is expected to persist through the rest of 2026 with only gradual improvement in 2027, net according to a Dow Jones article.

So there's some urea imports, but urea and hydrous have both been bullish over the last couple months.

And so UAN's always going to follow those, whether there's actual additional costs into production or not.

It's just going to follow that because that's what they can charge.

And if you have corn prices rally and you're already short supply, you're going to see fertilizer prices rise too.

And, and two, And farm-wide, that's going to be a big build afoot by the time it's all said and done.

Yeah.

I mean, you look at just that difference of that example of the 400 to 450 a ton UAN.

Uh, I mean, for most irrigated corn growers, that's 25, 30 bucks an acre of additional expenses for the same, you know, for the same pounds of nitrogen out there.

And so, you know, this slide is, you know, one thing's happening, carbon's increasing, but really you're getting all these other benefits along with it.

I mean, for those people that are interested in soil health, you're essentially building soil health, you know, by utilizing a product such as UAN that some people believe negatively affects soil health, right? By doing what you're talking about, by building the carbon and feeding the crop at the same time.

So, you know, this is a slide that's from a trial that we did.

it's two different access you know our axis on this but you can see where the treated we increase the the there's nitrate increases by almost 30 uh inorganic in increases by over 50 and that's not we're not saying that we're applying nitrogen with with this there's nothing in biocast max that's that's putting nitrogen there, that's putting phosphorus there, that's putting another nutrient there.