By Daniel Kaiser and Jochum Wiersma
Decisions about the amount of nitrogen to apply in wheat and
barley are challenging each and every year as the return per acre is not simple
a function of the price of the commodity but also on the quality (grain protein
%) of those bushels. There are opportunities to capture premiums for protein
but more often than not producers are faced with discounts as the grain protein
percentages fall below the market's 14% threshold.
While this was already an issue in 2008 with
high yields in
Northwest Minnesota leading to
lower protein, it was greatly magnified in 2009 with producers reporting grain
protein percentages of 10% or less.
This
issue is not new since it has been long noticed that yield and protein are
inversely related. The amount of grain protein produced per acre appears to be
relatively constant over years. In high yielding years the extra starch
produced
simply dilutes the total
protein produced per acre leading to smaller percentages in the grain
Unfortunately farmers are not paid for total
production of grain protein per acre but rather they are paid for concentration
in grain.
