Weather is the single biggest risk in farming, because you never know what is going to happen.

Harry Brook, Crop Specialist with the Ag Info. Center says there are a few different ways you can go about fertilizing when the weather is so unpredictable.

"First of all you can fertilizer for optimal production under expected weather conditions or average weather conditions. When you fertilize, not all of it is going to make it into the crop. A certain amount of the fertilizer is cycled through the soil microbes, so the soil microbe organism will take some of that nitrogen and use it to make more of themselves. So in a way if you fertilize for a good average, there is enough flexibility usually in the soil organic matters itself that it can provide almost a buffer for any excessive crop production."

Brook says the first thing you need to do is take a look at your soil and what the nutritional situation is.  Once you are pretty sure about what you can get out of the soil, you need to look at the weather conditions for the summer.

"So if its really good growing conditions expected, with good moisture and sub soil moisture, maybe you want to fertilize a little higher than average and if it looks dicey, go for lower than average," Brook explains.  

Brook says side banding or micro banding fertilizer close to the seed is the most efficient way of fertilizing. "If you are spraying a foliar application later on it is a lot less efficiently used because the roots pick of the nutrients, so if you are spraying onto the leaf surface, the majority still have to be washed off to the soil surface to be picked up by the roots."    

He says you don't want to spend a lot of money on fertilizer only to find out the crop is going to dry out a few months down the road.  As a general rule, Brook says to fertilize 90-95 percent of expected needs with the seeds.