Keystone Projects

Fertilisers

Explosives

Enhanced Efficiency Fertilisers

Overview

Incitec Pivot Fertilisers (IPF) offers two enhanced efficiency fertiliser (EFFs) products:

Green Urea™ is a top dressing fertiliser, recommended where volatilisation losses of ammonia are likely. Green Urea products contain urea treated with the urease inhibitor, N-(n-butyl) thiophosphoric triamide (NBPT), aimed at delaying hydrolysis of urea into unstable forms that may be lost to the atmosphere thereby reducing emissions related to fertiliser usage.

Entec® is a treatment that retains nitrogen in the stable ammonium form for an extended period. While still available as a nitrogen source, ammonium nitrogen is not subject to leaching or denitrification losses.

The Enhanced Efficiency Fertilisers (EEF) project is a joint research project with the University of Melbourne in Australia. It aims to measure differences in nitrogen losses from IPF's two EEFs when compared to conventional nitrogen fertilisers. The project is focusing on industries that have highest potential for losses: those in high rainfall or irrigation zones, such as sugar cane, dairy, horticulture and cotton.

The project has three main aims:

evaluate the potential and limitations for IPF's EEF to reduce gaseous and leaching losses from nitrogen fertilisers;

quantify the impact that EEFs may have on the nitrogen and other nutrient cycles (e.g. phosphorus) and plant growth; and

develop a process model and support tool for the use of Incitec Pivot's EEFs to ensure they deliver optimum plantaccessible nitrogen with minimal environmental impact.

Status

With the passage of the Carbon Farming Initiative through the Australian senate, the project is now filling knowledge gaps around Australia. This will involve continuing measurements of gaseous emissions from a range of agricultural systems and assessment of leaching potential in certain systems.

Results

Studies in this project to date have demonstrated significant reduction in gaseous nitrogen losses by using these products. The sales of fertilisers that have proven to be more efficient are a key metric for this project. Increasing sales will indicate that our support tool and field services have converted farmers to using the EEF products. This metric is not reported publicly for commercial reasons.