Nutrient Planning for 2026: Things to consider after a tough 2025

After a tough 2025 season, nutrient planning for 2026 is about accuracy, timing, and making every unit count. Hugo Ellis shares his key considerations for improving nutrient efficiency while protecting yield and quality.

At this stage of the planning cycle, most nutrient management plans have been written, fertiliser ordered, and organic manure allocated. After a growing season where soil moisture deficit constrained nutrient uptake and crop yield across large areas of the UK, getting nutrient efficiency right—and applying fertilisers and manures accurately—matters more than ever.

With fertiliser prices still volatile, suppressed grain prices, and wider uncertainty in the mix, there’s a clear case for revised nutrition plans that are both cost-effective and resilient to whatever the coming season throws at us. The challenge is to balance safeguarding crop yield potential with making savings where possible.

Here are some key considerations when refining crop nutrient programmes for 2026.

Nitrogen (N)

Improving nitrogen use efficiency (NUE) is central to both financial and technical performance. The principles are well established, but implementation remains highly dependent on seasonal conditions and management flexibility.

Rate determination

Base nitrogen planning on:

• Soil Nitrogen Supply (SNS) assessments.
• Realistic yield potential based on soil type, rotation, and moisture availability.
• Crop end-use specification (e.g. milling vs feed wheat).
• Contributions from organic manures, legumes, and previous cropping.

When setting N rates, it’s important to consider all the factors above—particularly where canopy size, rooting, or disease pressure are likely to cap yield response.

Timing and form

Synchronising N availability with crop demand is essential:

• Target applications around key growth stages.
• Avoid ‘rushed’ applications of uninhibited urea under suboptimal conditions, where volatilisation or leaching risk is high.
• Choose urease-inhibited fertilisers where volatilisation risk is elevated, and for applications after the end of March.

Poorly timed applications can reduce NUE twice: first, through environmental losses associated with volatilisation or leaching, and second, through reduced crop yield responses where applications are applied too early or late.

Phosphorus (P) and Potassium (K)

Firstly, ensure soil testing is up to date. For a relatively low investment, savings can be made where indices have been well maintained over the years, and requirements are low or nil.

In many cases, crops failed to achieve predicted yield potential in 2025. While this will influence five-year rolling yield averages, a single drought year does not necessarily justify revising long-term yield potential downwards.

To maintain P and K levels at target indices, consider adjusting nutrient offtake where crop yields were significantly lower. Key opportunities include:

• Adjusting P and K replacement rates to reflect actual yield and offtake, rather than theoretical yield, to maintain target indices.
• Using grain analysis to validate crop nutrient status and identify where supply was adequate or limiting.
• Identifying situations where drought or rooting limitations restricted nutrient uptake despite adequate soil indices. This can indicate a need to focus on soil structure, rooting depth, and nutrient placement, rather than higher application rates.

Foliar Nitrogen Strategies

Granular and liquid nitrogen products are generally the most cost-effective per unit of nutrient, but they rely on root uptake from the soil. Efficiency can be reduced by sub-optimal conditions, leaching, and volatilisation.

Foliar nitrogen can help improve nitrogen use efficiency (NUE) by bypassing soil-based loss pathways and delivering nitrogen directly to the crop. This is particularly valuable during periods of high demand or when root uptake is restricted.

Technical options include:

• Amide-based foliar nitrogen formulations, often enhanced with chelators and trace elements to improve uptake and assimilation.
• Urea-polymer nitrogen products, designed to provide a slower, sustained release of nitrogen via foliar pathways
• Amino acid-based formulations, supporting nitrogen assimilation efficiency, metabolic activity, and stress recovery
• Dissolved urea systems, stabilised with carbon sources to improve leaf penetration and reduce scorch risk.

Foliar nitrogen should be viewed as a complement to soil-applied nitrogen in many programmes and is most effective when aligned with growth stages where crop nitrogen demand exceeds root uptake capacity.

Micronutrients

Micronutrient deficiencies, even when marginal, can significantly reduce NUE by limiting photosynthesis, enzyme function, and nitrogen assimilation.

Best practice includes:

• Using grain analysis to assess historic micronutrient removal.
• Targeted leaf tissue or sap analysis to identify in-season deficiencies.
• Applying micronutrients alongside foliar nitrogen at key growth stages.

Correcting micronutrient limitations will improve the crop’s ability to convert applied nitrogen into yield and quality.

Organic Manures

Organic manures represent a major opportunity to improve whole-farm nutrient efficiency, but they are also a source of variability.

Key technical steps include:

• Laboratory testing of manures before application to quantify total and available nutrients.
• Adjusting fertiliser plans to reflect actual nutrient supply, rather than standard ‘book values’.
• Accounting for timing, method of application, and soil conditions to estimate plant-available nitrogen.

Where slurry is applied, consider using slurry additives. Recent trials indicate improved retention of ammonium-N, reduced gaseous losses, and measurable improvements in forage yield and protein content where slurry treatment is used.

We’re here to help

At Terrafarmer, our agronomists can offer practical advice on improving nutrient efficiency while protecting yield and quality.

As well as agronomic and biological input advice, our services include soil carbon baselining and bespoke regenerative agriculture plans, all designed to build resilient soils and maintain yields under challenging conditions.

For personalised advice and expert support to implement these solutions on your farm, contact Terrafarmer. We’re here to help you grow stronger, more resilient soils in a changing climate.