With a difficult harvest behind them and snow accumulating on their fields, Yorkton-area farmers have begun looking ahead to next spring.
As many scrutinize soil test results to determine their fertilizer needs for next year's crop, a new fertilizer plant has just launched production in Saskatchewan that has a number of producers breaking from tradition and taking a different approach to the phosphate they apply to their soil each year.
It's all about searching for ways to be more efficient as farm sizes increase and producers are pushed to cover more acres within a tight time frame, says Amy Mattus, an agronomist with Hillcrest Enterprises near Coronach. She says the phosphate fertilizer blend produced at the new Alpine Plant Foods manufacturing facility near Regina is different from other phosphate fertilizers farmers typically use to promote early growth in the spring.
Mattus adds, an increasing number of farmers she works with have started using it to gain new efficiencies on their farms including:
Liquid Frees Up Dry Air Tank - Can Seed Crops Faster
"The sooner your seed is in the ground, the quicker that crop reaches the finish line at harvest, which can determine whether it's in the bin or still out in the field if there's an early fall frost," says Mattus.
Lower Rates
"They're getting the same or better yields with 8-to-14 lbs/acre of liquid Alpine as they did using more than twice as much dry P. And their crops are emerging two or three days faster."
Immediately Usable in Cold Soils
New Plant in Full Production
The company's new 14,000-square-foot facility in Belle Plaine is the only hot mix liquid phosphate plant in Western Canada. It can produce 700,000 litres per day of Alpine's liquid starter, foliar products, and micronutrients.
