The Illinois Nutrient Loss Reduction Strategy will be finalized this summer, but farmers already have got a jump on it with changes in their fertilizer management efforts.

 

The strategy will direct efforts to reduce nutrients from point and non-point sources in a coordinated, primarily voluntary and cost-effective manner with a goal to reduce the state’s phosphorus load by 25 percent and its nitrate-nitrogen load by 15 percent by 2025. The eventual target is a 45 percent reduction in the loss of these nutrients to the Mississippi River.

 

There has been a large increase in spring nitrogen sales in the state from 2012 to 2014. Fall fertilizer sales have decreased 30 percent over the last three crop years, and there also has been a large increase in the sales of nitrification inhibitors in the last 10 years.

 

Click Here to read more.