The California Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA) Fertilizer Research and Education Program (FREP) released a blog post: Research Update: N management case studies: Utilizing N-rich reference zones in California small grain crops.
The post, which originally ran on the UC Small Grains Blog, examines recently developed, FREP grant-funded case studies detailing nitrogen (N) management actions and crop productivity outcomes in several small grain fields during the 2019-20 growing season. Growers from across California worked with UC Cooperative Extension to implement N-rich reference zones in their fields. To help growers determine whether and how much N fertilizer to add in-season, plant and soil measurements from the reference zone and broader field are compared to understand whether the broader field is sufficient in available N.