Urea most cost-effective fertiliser in early spring

WITH spring application of nitrogen being considered, farmers will be asking themselves if they should spread CAN or urea.

Numerous experiments have been carried comparing the two and, in all cases, CAN was never found to be better than Urea in Irish conditions, whereas Urea was sometimes better than CAN.

Once Urea is applied to the soil it is converted to ammonium, which is held reasonably well by the soil particles. CAN is made up of both ammonium and nitrate, and the nitrate is at risk of being leached or denitrified. This will most likely happen if a period of adverse weather occurs after spreading, and some or all of the nitrate will be lost from the soil.