Farmers who didn’t get fertilizer booked says decision will ‘sting’

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Farmers who didn’t get fertilizer booked says decision will ‘sting’

A pair of Western Corn Belt farmers say availability of inputs are their top concern this growing season.

Doug Bartek raises corn and soybeans in Eastern Nebraska and tells Brownfield most of his chemicals have been purchased except fertilizer. “I had purchased early on some crop inputs that I do have in the shed,” he says. “On beans I’m in pretty good shape, but the corn fertilizer, that is really going to sting.”

He says there still uncertainty for many growers. “What you’ve bought and what you think you might get with the registrations changing, labels being pulled and switched, it’s going to make it very difficult to decide which cropping system to use on soybeans.” 

East Central Nebraska farmer Rick Gruber says he’s bought fertilizer but “glyphosate is very tight.  There is a few other of the chemical things that has popped up that we might have to switch to something else, but for the most part we are ok.”

Brownfield interviewed Bartek and Gruber at the Nebraska Soybean Association and Nebraska Corn joint lunch.

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