Wallaces Farmer

SPONSORED: The Encirca Yield Nitrogen Management Service helps adapt and monitor nitrogen management practices to maximize profitability and minimize loss.

May 23, 2016

3 Min Read

Nitrogen is a critical crop production input that farmers must manage to achieve high yields. Nitrogen management, however, is among the most complex and uncertain agronomic aspects of modern farming. Large quantities of organic nitrogen are present in most soils, but only a fraction of this nitrogen is mineralized each growing season into inorganic forms that are available for crop uptake. Inorganic nitrogen, originating from the soil or from fertilizers, is readily available to crops, but is also highly susceptible to losses. To add to this complexity, all of the processes that control nitrogen availability and loss vary by soil type, moisture, temperature and other factors.

growers_monitor_manage_nitrogen_like_never_before_1_635992644011280382.jpgTake the guesswork out of your nitrogen management with EncircaSM Yield Nitrogen Management Service from DuPont Pioneer. Plan, monitor and adapt nitrogen practices to maximize profitability and yields.

Based on strong agronomic expertise, combined with strategic collaborations in the areas of weather data, soils mapping and crop modeling, DuPont Pioneer now offers its EncircaSM Yield Nitrogen Management Service. The Service is an advanced solution that provides real-time, actionable insights with field-by-field specific recommendations from fall planning through in-season application.

The three key aspects of the DuPont Pioneer’s EncircaSM Yield Nitrogen Management Service are: Enabling Technologies, Service Delivery and Validation of the Technology.

Enabling Technologies

The core enabling technology of the EncircaSM Yield Nitrogen Management Service is a proprietary crop and soil model that simulates all aspects of crop growth, development and yield for a specific set of soil characteristics and under defined management and weather conditions. The model directly accounts for changes in soil water and nitrogen that occur over time in response to crop growth, management and weather.

A key advantage of the Service is that it is driven by weather data, updated on a daily basis, to reforecast soil nitrogen status. Through the collaboration with DTN/Progressive Farmer, Pioneer offers farmers access to an exclusive network of weather stations, including those positioned on or near the farms where the Service is deployed.

Service Delivery

The EncircaSM Yield Nitrogen Management Service is a powerful, accessible and scalable nitrogen management decision support tool. The Service uses a cloud computing framework to manage weather, soil and operational data for tens of thousands of fields on a daily basis, while also giving customers access to real-time soil nitrogen status updates via web browsers and mobile applications.

A key differentiator in the Service is how it is delivered to customers. Software-based solutions are coupled with direct, in-field support from the Certified Services Agent force. These highly-specialized and trained CSAs work side-by-side with customers to ensure that plans, prescriptions and management decisions are tailored to the individual farming operations.

Validation of the EncircaSM Yield Nitrogen Management Service

To validate the EncircaSM Yield Nitrogen Management Service, DuPont Pioneer conducted on-farm strip trials at 124 locations across nine states in 2015. At each trial location, an Encirca Services based nitrogen recommendation was applied to the majority of the field area, with one or more field-length, grower determined nitrogen rate check strips imbedded in the prescription for comparative purposes. Yield of grower rate strips was compared to adjacent, equally sized field areas managed with Encirca Services. Comparisons were made between applications that occurred on the same day.

Trial results indicated that the Service provided greater return on nitrogen fertilizer expense­­--6 bushel increase and nine pounds less nitrogen per acre--than standard grower practice at 74% of trial locations. Improved profitability for Encirca recommendations was the outcome of both improved corn yield and a reduction in the field-average nitrogen application rate compared to standard grower practice. These strip trials demonstrated that the Service was successful in increasing fertilization rates where more nitrogen was needed and reducing fertilization rates were additional nitrogen was not necessary to maximize corn yield.

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