Nutrient_budgeting
Nutrient budgeting
Comparison between nutrients in soil and in crops
Nutrient budgets are comparisons of nutrients applied to the soil to those taken up by crops. A nutrient budget takes into account all the nutrient inputs on a farm and all those removed from the land. The most obvious source of nutrients in this situation is fertilizer, but this is only part of the picture. Other inputs come with rainfall, in supplements brought on to the farm and in effluent – either farm or dairy factory – spread on the land. In addition, nutrients can be moved around the farm – from an area used for growing silage to the area used to feed it out, from paddock to raceway, and within paddocks in dung and urine patches. 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.[1]