It’s difficult to imagine where agriculture would be today had BASF chemists Fritz Haber and Carl Bosch not discovered how to harness the atmospheric abundance of nitrogen to create ammonia. The Haber-Bosch process has allowed growers to apply nitrogen-based nutrients, which is crucial to the fertile soil needed for today’s crop production. BASF has taken yet another step today in the field of nutrient management by announcing that Limus® nitrogen management will be available for sale in the U.S. for the 2015 growing season.

Limus nitrogen management can be blended with urea and UAN fertilizers to protect against volatilization and nitrogen loss, providing more than three weeks of protection. The patented formulation behind Limus nitrogen management combines two active ingredients that are more effective than a single inhibitor on urease enzymes found in soil, resulting in a decrease of nitrogen loss.

“Growers can lose over 40 percent of surface-applied urea due to volatilization within weeks of application,” said Nick Fassler, Product Manager, BASF. “This makes the window for growers to optimize protection of their fertilizer very critical.”

Reducing ammonia losses by more than 90 percent, Limus nitrogen management has demonstrated increased crop yields on average of 6 percent, according to 2013 replicated research, outperforming competitive products. In additional BASF research testing in controlled environments, untreated urea lost up to 35 percent of nitrogen 11 days after application. Urea fertilizer treated with Limus nitrogen management netted no more than 5 percent nitrogen loss.

Learn more in this interview with Fassler: [wpaudio url=”http://www.zimmcomm.biz/nafb/nafb14-basf-nick.MP3″ text=”Interview with Nick Fassler, BASF”]