John Hart A rule of thumb in Virginia is one pound of nitrogen per bushel of yield potential, so a 150-bushel corn crop needs 150 pounds of nitrogen.
Nitrogen fertilizer is not only one of the costliest inputs for corn production in Virginia, it is also one of the most difficult to manage due to the dynamic nature of the nutrient in soils.
“It’s directly related to yield in that we typically prescribe nitrogen rates based on a yield goal. At the end of the year, if we knew what the answer was going to be, it is relatively simple to prescribe the right rate, but we never know what the final yield is going to be so we usually base our corn nitrogen rates on a yield goal,” says Wade Thomason, Virginia Tech Extension corn and small grains specialist.