Site Specific Nutrient Management for Corn in Colombia

In tropical areas of the Andean countries thousands of hectares are cultivated with corn, but average yields are low. Production of corn grain is utilized to satisfy dietary needs of the population, but there is also an increasing demand for corn grain to be used as animal feed. Unforeseen conditions in the global market have improved substantially international corn prices and corn grain production became profitable and essential for each country of the region. A site specific nutrient management approach, based on the omission plot technique, was developed to study the influence of local agro-ecological conditions on nutrient requirements as a tool to develop fertilizer recommendations to achieve high sustainable yields.