Maximizing Soybean Yields and Unlocking Success: Benefits to Include Liquid Starter in 2024
Posted on March 19, 2024
Choosing a starter fertilizer is the first step in creating a season-long nutrition plan for soybeans. A starter fertilizer provides your crops with nutrients early in the season giving your soybeans a healthy start. Starter fertilizers can increase a crop’s ability to fight against early-season stress and improve overall plant health.
Adding a starter fertilizer to your crop nutrition plan can not only help to increase soybean yields at harvest but also increase your return on investment (ROI). Check out these three benefits of adding a starter fertilizer to your bean crop in 2024.
#1: Enhance Crop Uniformity
Applying a starter fertilizer in-furrow has many benefits for the crop. Soybeans treated with starter fertilizer benefit from faster germination and more uniform emergence with immediately available nutrients for the plant. Uneven emergence can have a negative impact on yields at harvest.
Additionally, a starter fertilizer can help reduce nutrient competition in the early growth stages. This leads to more consistent plant stands and overall uniformity across fields. Uniform growth will increase the efficiency of pollination in the field leading to better seed set and more pod development.
#2: Reduce Soybean Crop Stress Factors
A starter fertilizer can help mitigate early-season stress factors and reduce the effects of mid-season stress. Early in the growing season, young plants can face stress factors like cooler temperatures and wet soils that will slow growth.
Combat early season stresses by using a starter fertilizer, which can provide young plants with excellent sources of nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, and even some micronutrients. A starter fertilizer can also help crops fight against midseason stress. If a crop is experiencing nutrient deficiencies going into the mid-season growth and reproductive stages, additional stressors like drought will have an even greater impact on crop health and yields.
Providing a starter at the beginning of the growing season will allow soybean crops to enter midseason much healthier and void of nutrient deficiencies, allowing the crop to focus valuable energy on grain production instead of combating stress factors.
#3: Increase Yield Potential
A soybean crop will not reach its full yield potential if nutrients are a limiting factor in the crop’s growth. Starter fertilizers are a source of essential nutrients for a soybean crop, allowing for earlier germination and emergence.
In 2023 research trials, the application of First Pass®, a starter fertilizer to soybeans showed a 5.4 bushel yield gain at harvest.
First Pass is a liquid starter with a unique blend of nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium acetate, and manganese designed to provide your soybeans with early-season nutrition. Nutrients like manganese improve seed germination and quicken plant maturity allowing for earlier flowering in soybeans.
Support and Expertise from The Andersons
The Andersons First Pass is a low-salt liquid starter specifically blended for soybeans to provide them with proper nutrition early in the season and maximize yields at harvest.
See how First Pass performed in our 2023 field trials by checking out our 2023 Research Guide. If you have any questions about First Pass, please fill out our contact form and a member of the sales team will contact you directly.
