95 miles NW of Quitaque, TX | The article misspelled fertilizer (fertiliser). My question is how much N has already been applied, priced locked up but not applied but will soon, etc. I thought the Racoon water was to polluted and less N needs to be applied to soils. I think that most N is already in the US for corn and 2026 season. Someone is trying to scare people. Don't we have to much corn right now? A little less corn will make the price go up, right. I think for the 2026 corn season the corn yield might be just fine because of reasons above. Now if this is still happening for the fall wheat crop then that is another story. My guess is the nitrogen is going to get out one way or another. Look there are already pipelines from Saudia Arabia that takes oil to the Red Sea. There are two other pipelines to get oil out. Plus I saw an the tv that Iran needs oil revenue to keep on building missles and drones. So they want oil to get out to. The Strait of Hormuz is not solidly shut down. Besides China needs the oil and that oil will get out. I do not quite understand why the third reason is China from below. China is making money on engines for the drones but that needs oil and the revenue from drones will not hold the Chinese economy together. Besides China is awfully quiet from what I have seen.
Most from article.
BREAKING: The nitrogen trap just closed. Three locks snapped shut simultaneously. The planting window is closing behind them. And the food the world eats next year is now being decided by molecules that cannot reach the soil in time.
Lock one: the Strait of Hormuz. The IRGC permissioned corridor allows oil tankers from friendly nations to pay $2 million in yuan and pass. It does not allow fertiliser vessels to pass at any price. Zero approved fertiliser transits in 24 days. The Gulf supplies 49 percent of the world’s exported urea and roughly 30 percent of traded ammonia. That supply is not delayed. It is denied. The gate opens for molecules that fund the gatekeeper. It stays closed for molecules that feed the planet.
Lock two: Russia. The world’s largest exporter of ammonium nitrate just halted all AN exports until after April 21. Three to four million tonnes per year, gone from global markets at the exact moment the Northern Hemisphere needs it most. The official reason is “domestic priority.” The strategic effect is leverage. Russia earns windfall revenue from the oil price spike its ally’s war created, then removes the fertiliser that farmers need to plant through the crisis. The disease and the cure, again, from the same address.
Lock three: China. Beijing has banned exports of nitrogen-potassium blends and phosphate fertilisers through August 2026. China is the world’s largest phosphate producer and a major nitrogen supplier. The ban removes the last alternative source that could have compensated for Hormuz and Russia. Three locks. Three countries. Three deliberate decisions timed to the same biological calendar.
The biological calendar does not negotiate. Corn requires nitrogen at the V6 to VT growth stage or kernel set is permanently reduced. Wheat requires it at tillering and jointing or grain fill collapses. Rice requires it at transplanting or yield drops 20 to 40 percent in low-input systems. These are not economic models. They are cellular processes. The plant either receives nitrogen during the window or it does not. If it does not, no subsequent application, no price increase, no policy reversal can recover what was lost. The damage is written into the biology of the seed.
The US Corn Belt window closes mid-April. European top-dressing is happening now. Indian Kharif preparation begins in May. Bangladeshi Boro rice transplanting is underway this week. Every one of these windows is closing while the three largest sources of nitrogen on Earth are simultaneously locked: Hormuz by military blockade, Russia by export decree, China by trade ban. |
Fertilizer shortage... Food shortage coming?
