August, 2019
Page 7
SARDA News
The Value of Wheat Straw We are looking at heavy crop residues in much of our crops in the Peace Region this fall. The value of that crop residue is often forgotten when considering whether to chop, till, bale or burn. All a person can think of is the issue of seeding through the heavy mat of crop residue in the spring. While I do not have the value of all the different crop residues, I have found a recent article in the North Dakota State University Agricultural Newsletter that puts a value on wheat straw. The following contains excerpts from that article. Wheat straw contains some of all essential plant nutrients, but nitrogen (N), phosphorus
(P) and potassium (K) are the only nutrients in sufficient amounts to be considered. Wheat straw contains some of all essential plant nutrients, but nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P) and potassium (K) are the only nutrients in sufficient amounts to be considered. There is also calcium and magnesium in similar amounts, but all regularly cropped and productive soils in North Dakota have very large amounts of each of these, so they are not considered a value that needs to be considered in the fertilizer value of the wheat straw. Generally, there are about 13 lb N per tonne, 1.7 lb P2O5(phosphate fertilizer equivalent) and 33 lb K2O (potassium fertilizer equivalent) in a tonne of straw. At present day local retail fertilizer price estimates, the value of these is:
