A nutrient budget is a comparison of the nutrients applied to a farm's soil against those taken up by its crops, accounting for all the nutrient inputs on the farm and everything removed from the land. The most obvious nutrient source is fertilizer, but inputs also arrive with rainfall, in supplements brought onto the farm, and in farm or dairy-factory effluent spread on the land, while nutrients are also moved around the farm itself, from an area growing silage to the area where it is fed out, from paddock to raceway, and within paddocks in dung and urine patches. Nutrients leave the farm in stock sold on, in products such as meat, milk and wool, in crops sold or fed out off the farm, and through processes such as nitrate leaching, volatilization and phosphate run-off.
Facts
Practice ClassFarm nutrient management tool 1 Connections
Associated With
Source Wikipedia: Nutrient budgeting - Wikipedia
In Discipline
Sources
1. Wikipedia: Nutrient budgeting - Wikipedia
Importance section
An accurate nutrient budget is an important tool to provide an early indication of potential problems arising from (i) a nutrient surplus (inputs>outputs)
Lead section, outputs sentence
Nutrients are removed from the farm in stock sold on, products (meat, milk, wool), crops sold or fed out off farm, and through processes such as nitrate leaching, volatilization and phosphate run-off etc.
Lead section, first sentence
Nutrient budgets are comparisons of nutrients applied to the soil to those taken up by crops.
Assumptions section
A nutrient budget isn't as exact as a financial statement.
Assumptions section, yield history passage
By examining the historical yields of crops take from specific fields, you can calculate nutrient removal over time.
Assumptions section, soil test passage
This component is complementary to the budget and lets you know what nutrients are already available to crops and helps you plan input purchases.
Lead section, fertilizer sentence
The most obvious source of nutrients in this situation is fertilizer, but this is only part of the picture.
Importance section, regulatory indicator passage
They also provide regulatory authorities with a readily-determined, comparative indicator of environmental impact.
Importance section, closing sustainability passage
Overall, nutrient budgets help ensure that farming practices are conducted in an efficient, economic, and environmentally sustainable manner.
Associated With: Agricultural Runoff, Introduction, nutrient losses passage
through processes such as nitrate leaching, volatilization and phosphate run-off
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