The LandWISE Nutrient Budget Templates have been designed to support vegetable growers to budget fertiliser use according to good management practice guidelines. The templates rely on nutrient recommendations from Reid & Morton (2019), which uses crop yield predictions and soil fertility testing to determine the optimum rate of Nitrogen and Phosphorus to apply.
View or download templates below:
LandWISE Nitrogen Budget Template 2020
LandWISE Phosphorus Budget Template 2020
Watch a video showing how to use the templates here:
Nutrient budgets are becoming a necessary process to document the movement of nutrients on and off-farm, and justify fertiliser applications. Nutrient budgets can be used to develop a fertiliser plan, where each paddock or management unit has a clear strategy to maintain, build or mine soil nutrient levels.
Put simply, nutrient budgeting is a way to keep track of inputs and outputs in a growing system. When inputs of a nutrient, for example Nitrogen in fertiliser and compost are greater than its outputs (crop yield) then there is a surplus. If inputs are less than outputs,there is a deficit.
Characterizing nutrient flows on the farm as deficits or surpluses is known as a mass balance – whilst a surplus doesn’t necessarily mean Nitrogen or Phosphorus is being lost via leaching or runoff – it can point to inefficiency in the system such as poor soil structure limiting root exploration, or application timing not matching plant demand.
The Nutrient Budget Templates bring together a number of existing resources to support growers to develop and follow soil fertility plans. Soil nitrogen levels can be entered from laboratory soil tests, however the results from a Quick Nitrate Test can also be entered through FAR’s Nitrate Quick Test Mass Balance. This test can provide growers with soil nitrate levels in less than an hour for about $1. FAR’s tool reliably converts nitrate concentrations (ppm) into kg N/ha.
The Nutrient Management Guidelines for Vegetables provide nutrient application recommendations based on predicted crop yield and current soil fertility levels.
The LandWISE Nutrient Budget Templates have been developed as part of Future Proofing Vegetable Production, a three-year project funded by MPI’s Sustainable Farming Fund, Ballance, Horizons, Gisborne District Council, and Potatoes NZ.
