 This is the SugarBeat Report, bringing you the latest information from NDSU throughout the SugarBeat growing season. Today we're talking about how SugarBeat Emergence is impacted by spring nitrogen applications. Joining us is Daniel Kaiser, University of Minnesota Extension Soil Scientist. Daniel, applying nitrogen in the spring is a common practice. What do SugarBeat growers need to know? So one of the main questions that have had from growers has been the impact of spring urea on emergence. And we've seen this with a lot of our studies. We've been tracking and looking at emergence that as you increase the nitrogen rate applied spring urea, you tend to see a decrease in emergence. I'm just looking at some of the numbers from some of my more recent studies. And with some of the high rates that we're applying, and I want to really make this clear that I'm applying higher rates than a grower would be normally applying, roughly 200 pounds of applied in. We're seeing roughly around a 25% reduction in emergence at worst in some of our trials over the past few years. And it really depends on the trial in terms of the overall effect that spring urea has on emergence. So said that number can fluctuate up and down. If there are potential issues with applying nitrogen in the spring, what about applying in the fall? One of the current trials that we are working on is looking at a fall spring comparison. And one thing that I have seen is that we tend to see some of the same impact with fall applied urea as spring applied urea on emergence. It's not as severe. He might be seeing maybe a few percent decrease, but it's measurable in some of the studies. The thing about it though is when we start looking at yield, if you look at both tonnage, recoverable sucrose obviously drops as we look at increasing the nitrogen rate, but yield-wise tonnages, it tends to plateau out and we don't tend to see a similar impact where the increasing rates are decreasing tonnage. So it's not having an impact overall on the total root yield that's out there in the field. But there's some growers to concern. If you start hearing 25% of your planning is potentially not emerging, it does become somewhat an issue. Are there questions about inhibitors? If we put an inhibitor on, does that have an impact? That data right now, we are looking at that with some of the studies, but it's a little inconclusive right now. I'm a little too early to draw a conclusion. It may have a slight reduction in the impact that spring urea has if you put on some sort of inhibitor, use a product like ESN, but I'm just not there to make that overall conclusion. Do you have project results from products other than urea? Again, the focus has been mainly on urea. Some of the other sources I don't have a lot of data on. So anhydrous, we don't know. And obviously some of these other sources that might be treated urea products, again, that we're still a little too early to tell. UAN is another one that you have to remember that 50% of the nitrogen in UAN is urea. So if it is a urea effect, I mean there might still be effect with UAN, at least if you're applying that early on. It's something I think to be aware of. But unless I see some direct evidence that it's impacting root yield, again we see these decreases in emergence, but it seems to be that the less beats that are out there, we just see a larger root size where it's compensating for some of that loss. Until I see more direct evidence that we're seeing an impact on overall the yield within the field, I'm really less concerned about the impact that spring urea has on emergence, especially with the rates that most growers should be applying. Are you confident with the results of your project? We're in an ongoing project. So again, some of my results might change, but if we look back the last four or five years, the data's all been the same. If you look at emergence versus yield, I mean, yes, emergence goes down with the increasing rate, but it doesn't seem to affect root yield. It'll be interesting to look at as this recoverable sucrose is that we do see this emergence in the recoverable sucrose would trend downward the similar fashion. But I think that's the same regardless of whatever source you have. So that may not be just a direct effect of some of this emergence issue. It's about the only effect that we see that would follow some of this issue with decreased emergence. It's a site by site issue. So we'll see some sites where we may not see that much of an impact on emergence and we still see the effect on recoverable sucrose. So again, it really can't say that those two go hand in hand. You know, the main thing I've been really saying to growers is that yes, effect is there. But again, it shouldn't really affect tonnage because the the beat itself should be flexing, at least are growing a larger beat to compensate for some of these reduced stands. Thanks, Daniel. Our guest has been Daniel Kaiser, University of Minnesota Extension Soil Scientist. This has been the SugarBeat Report, bringing you the latest information from NDSU throughout the SugarBeat growing season.