As farmers navigate a challenging economic landscape, understanding soil composition has become crucial. By measuring nutrient levels like nitrogen and phosphorus, farmers can optimize fertilizer use, which is essential amid soaring input costs.
Significant hikes in prices for essentials such as diesel fuel and nitrogen fertilizer are compelling farmers to make tough financial decisions. This includes potentially delaying equipment maintenance, reducing pesticide usage, or limiting fertilizer applications.
DeDe Jones, a risk management economist with Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service, collaborates with producers to maintain profitability, a task that’s increasingly challenging this season.
“This is not going to be a year where there’s a silver bullet where essentially I say, ‘Grow this crop and you’ll be fine,’” Jones remarked. “In terms of the input cost side, it just is going to come down to these little adjustments you can make.”
Managing Fertilizer Costs
Jones, along with Davis, emphasizes the importance of soil testing before fertilizer application.
“With nitrogen being so extremely high [in cost] right now, any residual you can take advantage of that’s already in the soil is going to help the bottom line,” Jones explained.
Davis, who also manages a crop consultancy he founded nine years ago, reports an uptick in demand for soil testing services.
“The interest has been increasing each year,” Davis observed. “However, with the current economic status of row crop farming, specifically in the Midwest, that has accelerated more in the last couple years.”
Nevertheless, some farmers are resorting to more drastic measures to cut costs this season.
“There’s a lot of growers that I’m aware of that simply just cut fertilizer, or most of it, out,” Davis noted.
According to the American Farm Bureau Federation, the cost of nitrogen fertilizer has risen by over 30% since the onset of the conflict in Iran. While some Midwest farmers secured fertilizer supplies in the fall at lower prices, many were unable to do so.
Diesel fuel is now nearly $2 per gallon more expensive than it was a year ago, reported by the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
Even before the U.S. and Israel’s military actions in Iran and the subsequent blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, farm economists had forecasted tight profit margins for 2026. The blockade has exacerbated the rise in fuel and fertilizer costs.
“That wasn’t built into any of the cash flow projections or the plans for this year. And so I would call that definitely a shock to the system,” commented Michael Langemeier, professor and director of the Center for Commercial Agriculture at Purdue University.
