Nitrate

Better for strong and healthy crops,
better for the planet

Nitrate is the best nitrogen fertilizer.

Locally produced zero-carbon fertilizer benefits the climate and ecosystems

Fertilizer increases yields and allows the same amount of food to be produced on a smaller surface.

Sequester carbon

The crops grown on farms using nitrogen fertilizer sequester 10-15 times the carbon equivalents emitted from application losses – meaning the application of zero-carbon nitrogen fertilizer is carbon negative.

Protect biodiversity

Further, avoiding land use change necessary to produce the same amount of food without fertilization preserves forests, biodiversity and natural wetlands with positive effects both for the climate, wildlife and the environment.

Urea based nutrition

Urea causes significant pollution whereas nitrate does not

Cannot be made renewable

Urea contains CO2 in the molecule and cannot be made renewable (CO(NH2)2) as opposed to ammonium nitrate which contains only nitrogen, hydrogen and oxygen.

Cannot be directly consumed

Crops consume nitrate and ammonium. All other forms of nitrogen must be converted to nitrates by soil bacteria to be available to the plants. This conversion acidifies soil, which leads to burned roots.

Suffers from volatilization losses

Losses from volatilization of nitrates are 90% lower than urea losses on the majority of farms, with 1-3% for nitrates compared to 24% on average up to 58% worst case for urea.

Volatilization losses are a key concern, not only because of the reduction in crop-available nitrogen but also because ammonia contributes to acid rain and particle matter pollution.

Nitrate based nutrition

Nitrate gives higher yield, better quality and more control

Gives higher yield

With the same amount of nitrogen, nitrate based nutrition allows higher yield. The same application rate results in 2-5% higher yield for nitrate based nutrition compared to urea.

Gives better quality

Crops fertilized with nitrates improve their protein content by 0.3-0.9%.

Allows for precision farming

The application of urea depends on rain to avoid excessive losses. However, the crops need nutrition at the right time, independent of the weather forecast. Nitrate is the only crop nutrition that allows precision farming: to apply what the plant needs, when it needs it.

To maintain yields and quality, the optimum N rate when using urea would have to be, on average, 20% higher than for nitrate.