The cost of nitrogen fertilizers, environmental challenges, and evolving regulations are now driving farmers to optimize their fertilization strategies.
The objective is clear: reduce nitrogen inputs while maintaining crop yield and quality.
Improving nitrogen fertilization efficiency is now a central challenge for French and European agriculture. For farmers, the challenge is not simply to reduce nitrogen doses, but to maximize the value of every unit applied in order to secure yield, harvest quality, and, ultimately, farm profitability.
FERTILINE offers a range of innovative nutrition solutions based on FertiRoc® adapted to this strategy and proven through three years of micro-plot trials. The challenge now is to confirm their value under real production conditions and, above all, to succeed in their large-scale deployment across different crops and varied pedoclimatic contexts.
In order to provide farmers with references acquired under their real production conditions, FERTILINE entrusted Fermes Leader with the implementation of a network of large-strip trials. Nearly 40 trials were thus deployed this year with partner farmers to evaluate, in real conditions, the value of the innovative nutrition solutions developed by PHYTEUROP Industry based on FertiRoc® and marketed by FERTILINE.
Improving nitrogen fertilization efficiency
Unlike conventional fertilizers, the FertiRoc®-based solutions being tested do not provide significant additional nitrogen. They aim to better utilize the nitrogen already present in the soil as well as that provided by mineral and/or organic fertilization.
Developed from micronized zeolite and formulated in liquid form, these solutions are applied foliarly at key stages of crop development to strengthen the plant’s ability to mobilize available nitrogen.
This is what is known as nitrogen efficiency: making the most of every unit applied, rather than increasing doses. An approach that reconciles agronomic performance, cost control, and environmental impact.
Trials conducted directly on farms
To evaluate this strategy in conditions representative of field reality, Fermes Leader deployed a network of large-strip trials spread across several farms.
The main crops involved are:
- Maize
- Spring barley
- Sunflower
- Wheat
- Sugar beet
This approach allows for the evaluation of the strategy in different pedoclimatic contexts and takes into account the variability encountered in the field. It should also help identify the contexts in which these solutions bring the most value to farmers.
A simple protocol representative of agricultural practices
Each trial compares two methods conducted in the same plot:
- Control method: the farm’s usual management practice.
- Test method: reduction of nitrogen inputs combined with the application of a FertiRoc®-based solution.
Nitrogen reduction levels are adapted to each crop:
Crop | Test strategy |
Maize | -20% nitrogen + application at the 6-leaf stage |
Spring barley | -15% nitrogen + application at the 2-3 node stage |
Sunflower | Reduction of nitrogen fertilization by up to 100% + one application at the 6-leaf stage |
Sugar beet | -20 nitrogen units + two applications |
The trials are conducted on strips that can reach 2 hectares in order to obtain results directly transposable to agricultural practices.
Rigorous monitoring until harvest
Throughout the season, the plots are monitored through a combination of field visits, regular exchanges with partner farmers, and analyses carried out using management tools.
At harvest, the trial strips are weighed individually to precisely compare the performance of the two methods. Whenever possible, yield maps are also analyzed to refine the interpretation of the results.
Beyond yield, these trials will evaluate:
- The practical implementation capacity of nitrogen reduction strategies;
- The impact of the strategy on harvest quantity and quality;
- The value of this approach according to crops and pedoclimatic contexts;
- Its potential for larger-scale deployment.
References soon to be available
Ongoing harvests will allow for the consolidation of data collected across the entire trial network.
The results will allow for a comparison not only of the yields obtained between the control and test methods, but also of the harvest quality criteria. They will contribute to identifying the situations in which this strategy offers the most value to farmers.
Beyond the results obtained this year, the ambition is to gradually build robust, multi-crop, and multi-context references, allowing farmers and their advisors to integrate these new fertilization approaches with greater confidence and visibility.
This work will enrich the technical references of the Fermes Leader network and provide farmers with concrete benchmarks to engage in a nitrogen fertilization optimization process, reconciling economic, agronomic, and environmental performance.
