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Right Rate

Right Rate involves assessing soil nutrient supply and plant demand and applying the amount of nutrients necessary to maximize crop yield while minimizing environmental losses. Farmers may incorporate crop removal balance assessments, plant tissue analysis and historical record-keeping to determine the right rate of fertilizer application for a given cropping season. Farmers may also consider the use of innovative practices such as variable-rate technology that provide a means of assuring that fertilizer applications are made only in amounts and locations where they are needed to increase fertilizer inputs to areas of high productivity and decrease fertilizer inputs to areas of low productivity.