You have seen this value on reports or in the querying tool, but may not know much about this attribute. Here's what it is and how you can use it!
Some basic information:
- Ndex™ is the measure of efficiency that we have been looking for: yield divided by #N/bu.
- Ndex™ is a measurement of productivity (yield) and efficiency (#N/bu).
- The higher the Ndex™ the better!
Because soil-supplied N is so significant in many areas, Ndex™ provides a benchmark that recognizes there are dramatic differences between regions, parts of states, between fields and even within fields. No more one-size-fits-all N management standards.
This first table is a flat rate nitrogen field.
The second table is a manured field – an example of high yields but less efficient N use.
This third table is a northern Iowa field using Premier Crop variable rate nitrogen split-applied recommendation.
Why should every grower care about their Ndex™?
- The first reason is profit. The higher the Ndex™, the higher the profit.
- Our modern crop production system is on a collision course with the non-farming public that is more removed from farming with each generation. Many outside of agriculture associate high yield crop production with being environmentally reckless. During our 22 years, Premier Crop has been leading our customers to use their agronomic data to make better decisions, producing higher yields as efficiently as possible. We believe in and promote integrated
approaches to modern crop production. Ndex™ will help all of us tell our story!
Uses:
- It's mapable!
- We can use it as a benchmark – to measure our successes and failures within a field, between fields and across a grower’s operation, or use it as a benchmark within a geographic area.
- Ndex™ is part of the answer to avoiding the collision. One collision is hypoxia - the dead
zone in the Gulf – created when decaying plant growth (fed by nutrient-rich water) starves the water of oxygen. The Upper Mississippi Basin is being targeted but in our opinion, there are many in government and elsewhere promoting incredibly simplistic and flawed approaches to nitrogen management that ultimately will needlessly sacrifice our productivity and competitiveness.
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“Average is the Enemy” Real solutions to managing nitrogen as efficiently as possible mandate that we move away from using “averages” and move toward solutions that match the complexity of the biological organic nitrogen system. If we are going to continue to produce higher yields, more nitrogen will be required. And while we know that in the Midwest a significant portion of the nitrogen that grows our crop is soil supplied, simply reducing applied N rates to a statewide or even a regional “average” rate will limit our productivity. Why does that matter? There is no place in the world that is blessed with our resources. We are rain-fed, which means we aren’t competing for water – rather we’re working to slow excess water and its runoff. We have the very best soils; soils that much of the world craves. Limiting the Upper Mississippi River basin’s productivity by applying answers based on “averages” while the world ramps up crop production in water-starved, ecologically-vulnerable geographies makes no sense. But we have to prove to an ever more skeptical public that we are responsible. We have to prove that we can produce high yields and still be environmentally responsible. Can we squeeze more bushels out of the nitrogen we do apply?