ESN Fertilizer: Delayed Release Nitrogen System

The Farm did some work in 2005 on this system of delayed release N. Agrium gave us a tonne of it to work with for the spring.

I can't say I'm an expert on this product.

One thing that concerns me with this is the way some dealers are marketing it. I do see an excellent fit for the farm, but some sales people are going overboard with the claims.

As always "buyer beware"

Just to "fyi'. The basic concept is a coating to delay nutrient release or loss. The market should be fall and winter seeded crops, where there is an excellent fit. ( 34-0-0 use to fill the niche here, till people started making bombs with it). Other uses I see could be some fall applications situations or a blend in the spring to increase protein with late release. These should work and make sense to me.

But I am hearing sales pitches about reducing leaching and delaying release to flowering to increase yield. I would check with an unbiased agronomist about those claims. You will not see a lot of nitrogen leaching out of the root zone on the Canadian prairies. It can happen but we spent more time praying for rain here than getting to much (well weather has been pretty crazy maybe pray carefully). Delayed N release should improve protein in wheat but most yield is promoted with nitrogen available in the early stages of crop development.

Good got that off my chest. I can't be the "fertilizer police" and ESN fertilizer will be a useful product, but it's always disappointing when a marketer oversells or does not understand his product