It’ll be tempting with the late harvest and the rough year that preceded it to just git ‘er done and move on to 2020, but don’t be done quite yet.

“The weather environment of this past season was challenging," said Kevin Carlson, Federated’s agronomy sales manager, but that is exactly why it’s smart to get as much work done as possible in the fall, with fertilizer and/or tillage. It puts you one or two steps ahead of next year’s potential unpredictability.

Rod Gustafson, Federated’s ag and bulk fuel manager at the Albertville location, offered these solid reasons for saying "yes" to applying fertilizer this fall.

1. Fall fertilizer applications spread out the workload between now and spring.
2. Applying P and K in the fall means spring fertilizer applications will be faster with only N and S loaded into the spreader.
3. Soil compaction is minimized in the spring when fertilizer was applied in the fall.
4. DAP is in good supply in the fall, but DAP supplies are often tight in the spring (as they were in 2019) since they are shipped north on the river. (Slow melting Mississippi ice can hold up the barges carrying fertilizer.)
5. Federated offers competitive pricing on fertilizer and custom application this fall with deferred payments until January 2020 with approved credit.

Agronomically speaking, there are a variety of benefits to fall fertilizer (and tillage) as crop rotation plans come into play. This article from Mosaics offers additional perspectives on fall fertilizer applications.

Talk to your Federated Agronomist for your crop-specific recommendations.