Study: NutriSphere-N protects against long-term volatilization

As nitrogen costs remain volatile, farmers are looking to safeguard their valuable investment. New research released this fall from the University of Missouri demonstrates that adding NutriSphere-N Nitrogen Fertilizer Manager (N-N) to urea can help farmers receive long-lasting protection against volatilization.

The study was conducted by David Dunn, Soil Labs Manager at the University’s Fisher Delta Research Center, and was a continuation of his 2010 research. He analyzed how different nitrogen stabilizers work to help reduce nitrogen loss compared with untreated urea applications. 

Dunn observed that when significant rainfall did not occur within five to seven days of nitrogen application, NutriSphere-N clearly reduced the amount of ammonia lost. Within a 41-day period, plain urea lost four times as much nitrogen as the urea treated with NutriSphere-N (375.42 ppm ammonia for untreated urea compared to 84.17 ppm for N-N). 

“NutriSphere-N performed very well during the study, significantly reducing the cumulative long-term nitrogen loss,” says Dunn. “The ground was wet at application. Throughout the study, temperatures were high and rains were less than ¼- to ½-inch. These are all prime conditions for volatilization of nitrogen. Products like NutriSphere-N are great insurance policies when farmers are unable to predict when or how much it will rain.” 

“This University of Missouri research proves the long lasting nitrogen protection that NutriSphere-N delivers to farmers,” says Larry Sanders, Ph.D., president and CEO of SFP, which developed, manufactures and distributes NutriSphere-N.

“Up to 50 percent of nitrogen can be lost due to volatilization, denitrification and leaching, which is a significant financial loss for farmers,” says Sanders. “Year after year, farmers are seeing the difference NutriSphere-N makes in their fields. Studies like this confirm the product provides advanced protection and stabilization of nitrogen applications. SFP continues to be committed to helping farmers get the most from their fertilizer investment."

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There’s just one problem..... researchers who conducted eleven field studies and four laboratory studies at three separate universities using Nutrisphere-N® recently reported that “experiments revealed that the product has no nitrification or urea volatilization inhibiting properties at the recommended rates...”
(D. Franzen et al., Journal of Plant Nutrition, 34:1198-1222, 2011).
Certainly Nutrisphere-N® isn’t the only ineffective product on the market, but it’s used here as an example to reinforce the idea of doing your homework before investing dollars into fertilizer “add-ons.” Don’t be afraid to ask questions and seek-out replicated research data rather than just listen to testimonials, which by the way are plentiful on the Nutrisphere-N® web site.

If you look on the nutrisphere website at the graph produced from these research trials you find some interesting details. First, Urea is suggested to have lost over 350 ppm of NH3. That is over 700 lbs. The nutrisphere product has lost over 75 ppms of NH3 and this is the equivalent to 150 lbs. I am assuming this is by acre, but regardless this graph is very misleading and the data suggests that this product in fact loses an astronomical amount of NH3.