Taurus Fertility Tools
Program Builder
A pound is not a pound. Enter each crop’s blend in actual lbs of nutrient, set your field conditions, and see how much of each applied nutrient is effectively available to the crop in year one, side by side with a full Taurus program, crop by crop and across the whole farm.
Before you read a single number
All prices are generalized reference prices in CAD per metric tonne, and every one of them is editable. Contact your local retail for current pricing. Some products, including TAPP 2X and PKpluS, are not stocked at every retail; your Taurus representative can tell you where to find them.
+Add my soil test dataOpen Want even more accurate results? Your soil test knows your fields. pH, texture, moisture, season, application, and your K:Mg ratio all move the availability numbers. Fill in what you know and every value recalibrates. Skip it and we use Taurus base values.
Why Availability Beats Analysis: 2-Minute Soil Science
Mobile in the soil
Nitrate-N, sulphate-S, and boron move with water. Soil clays and organic matter carry a negative charge, and these nutrients are negatively charged anions, so the soil cannot hold them. They ride the water: down and out of the root zone in wet years and sandy ground, stranded near the surface in dry ones. This is why nitrogen protection and staged sulphate release are worth real money.
Held by the soil
Ammonium, potassium, calcium, and magnesium are positively charged cations, so the negatively charged soil holds them on its exchange sites like a magnet. They resist leaching but they barely move, so placement matters. Phosphate is the extreme case: it is chemically fixed by calcium in high pH soils and by iron and aluminum in low pH soils, which is why only 20–30% of conventional P works in year one.
Mobile inside the plant
N, P, K, and Mg can be remobilized: the plant strips them from old leaves and ships them to new growth and grain. A shortage shows on old leaves first, and the plant can partially rescue itself from a mid-season gap.
Stuck inside the plant
Sulphur, calcium, and boron do not move once parked. Deficiency hits the newest growth and the flowers, exactly the parts that build yield, and the plant cannot borrow from old tissue to fix it. These three need steady season-long supply, not one early pulse. That is the agronomic case for staged-release sulphate and calcium sources.
Saturated soils
When soil pores fill with water, oxygen runs out. Microbes start breathing nitrate instead, and denitrification sends nitrogen off as gas while sulphate and boron leach below the roots. Three wet days in June can undo a spring of planning; protected N and staged low-solubility sources shrink that exposure.
Dry, unsaturated soils
With no water moving, mobile nutrients quit moving too. Surface product strands above the roots, urea volatilizes waiting for rain, and elemental S sits unconverted because the oxidizing microbes need moisture. Dry years reward seed-row placement and forms that are already plant-available.
This is why the calculator prices effective year-1 nutrients instead of sticker analysis: the tag tells you what is in the prill, the soil decides what your crop gets. Set your conditions above and every number recalibrates.
Enter this crop’s blend in actual lbs of nutrient per acre, the way it reads on your soil test. Pick your sources and the tool builds the product rates, crediting the nitrogen in AMS and MAP and the sulphur in your P source automatically.
Do you spread any product? Indicate which below:▾
This is where the apples-to-apples happens. Spread your elemental S or Bio-Sul today but want SUL4R-PLUS in the drill with Taurus? Set S to Spreader on the Today side and Banded on the Taurus side, and every number downstream, blend line, drill tonnes, cart fills, respects it. The fall play in Bin Space moves Taurus sulphur out of spring entirely.
What this crop gets today
Where each nutrient comes from
The Fertility Company system for this crop
Take your agronomy a step further
This build keeps untreated 46-0-0 so the cost comparison stays honest, because TSN is not in every marketplace. When you are ready to see what protecting that nitrogen with TSN (NBPT + DMPP, 97% year-1 effective availability) is worth on your acres, run the TSN calculator.
Run the TSN nitrogen calculatorWhere each nutrient comes from
Crop by Crop
| Crop | Acres | Current $/ac | Taurus $/ac | Difference (farm) | Current MT | Taurus MT |
|---|
Bin Space & Handling
Cart Fill Calculator
Enter the tanks on your air drill cart. This counts seed-row and banded product only, the tonnes that actually ride the drill. Spread product goes on with the spreader, and fall-spread Polysulphate comes off the seeding critical path entirely. Fewer fills in seeding week, when an hour is worth more than any other hour of the year.
The fall play
Polysulphate and SUL4R-PLUS can be spread in the fall. Check this box to build the sulphur package on Polysulphate Granular, sized for fall application, and move those tonnes off your spring critical path.
The nitrogen play
Check this box to build the nitrogen on TSN instead of untreated urea. Protected N means more of every pound stays available, which means fewer pounds through the drill, and you will see the cart fills above drop the moment you check it.
Sulphur Source Showdown
Every sulphur source, ranked by the cost of one pound of sulphur effectively available in year one under your conditions. Edit any efficiency or price, or add your own product. Target: year-1 available lbs S per acre.
| Product | Grade / % S | Base S eff. % | Your conditions | $/MT | $ / effective lb S | Rate to hit target | $/ac |
|---|
Elemental forms are multi-year products: the low year-one share is not lost, it simply feeds future crops instead of this one. Polysulphate figures charge the full product price to sulphur, yet the same pass also delivers potassium, calcium, and magnesium the others do not.
Phosphate Source Showdown
Every phosphate source, ranked by the cost of one pound of P2O5 effectively available in year one under your conditions. Edit any efficiency or price, or add your own product. Target: year-1 available lbs P2O5 per acre.
| Product | Grade / % P2O5 | Base P eff. % | Your conditions | $/MT | $ / effective lb P2O5 | Rate to hit target | $/ac |
|---|
Tied-up phosphate is not gone, it is banked in less available forms; the year-1 figure is what this crop can reach. Multi-nutrient sources charge their full price to P here, yet the same pass also delivers the N, K, S, Ca, and Mg the straight sources do not.
True Value Per Tonne
What a tonne is really worth
Sticker price tells you what you pay. True value prices every nutrient inside the tonne at prairie commodity benchmarks, credits each one for how available it actually is compared to the benchmark source, and adds it up. Multi-nutrient products carry value the sticker never shows.
| Product | Grade | Sticker $/MT | True value $/MT | Value vs sticker |
|---|
Benchmark dollars per pound are backed out of the commodity floor (urea for N, MAP for P, potash for K, AMS for S), with each carrier’s other nutrients credited at year-1 availability ratios rather than face value; calcium and magnesium follow from SUL4R-PLUS and Polysulphate the same way.
| Nutrient | lbs / MT | Availability vs benchmark | Benchmark $/lb | Value $/MT |
|---|
Benchmarks: N from urea, K from in-furrow potash, S from AMS net of its nitrogen, P from MAP net of its nitrogen, Ca from SUL4R-PLUS net of its sulphur, Mg from Polysulphate Granular net of its K, S, and Ca. Availability credit is each product’s year-1 value divided by the benchmark source’s, at Taurus base values.
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By emailing or saving, you agree that a copy of these results and your approximate location are shared with Taurus so your rep can follow up. Prices remain generalized until your retail confirms them.
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Estimated Year-1 Effective Nutrient Availability
Estimated share of each applied nutrient expected to remain in, or become available to, the crop-accessible nutrient pool during the first growing season, after nutrient release, fixation and tie-up, and fertilizer-specific loss pathways. This is not the same as the percentage recovered in harvested crop tissue. Values are standardized Taurus reference assumptions for comparison; the optional field conditions adjust them within the range shown on each row, and every number stays editable right on the row. Values marked * are interim pending Taurus agronomy review.
| Product | Grade | N | P₂O₅ | K₂O | S | Ca | Mg | Notes |
|---|
Polyhalite note: Polysulphate nutrients are present as soluble sulphate salts and are released progressively during the growing season. Field research found 75–100% dissolution of K, Mg, S and Ca after 300 mm cumulative water, with K and Mg releasing fastest (IPI e-ifc 58, 2019). Estimates for comparison only, not a recommendation. Nutrient analyses are published product grades. Availability figures are estimated year-1 effective nutrient availability: the share of the applied nutrient expected to remain in, or become available to, the crop-accessible pool during the first growing season. They are standardized Taurus reference assumptions informed by research and industry data, not measured crop uptake, and actual results vary with soil, weather, and management. Nutrients not available in year one are not necessarily lost to the system; elemental sulphur, for example, feeds later seasons. All pricing is generalized. Contact your local retail for current pricing, and contact your Taurus representative to locate TAPP 2X, PKpluS, and other limited-distribution products. 1 MT = 2,204 lbs.