Q. When requesting a blend, how can a specific product amount be requested regardless of Least Cost Formulation or additional nutrient contributors supplied by the product that are not requested?
A. The Nutrient From feature in form-U-net can be used to request a specific product amount.
In the following example, a Material Group has been established containing DAP (18-46-0) and MESZ (12-40-0-10S). DAP is priced as the least cost item to supply phosphate in normal circumstances.
The grower would like to use MESZ but because it is more expensive and to keep costs at a minimum, half of the P request will be fulfilled using DAP. A Nutrient From needs to be set up for each of these phosphate items. To begin, open form-U-net and go to Material Groups / Edit Selected Material Group / Edit Data.
Select the 46 in the P column of the DAP (18-46-0) row. Right-click that same cell and select Add ‘Nutrient From’ Column.
A new column is added to the grid as shown below.
Repeat the steps above to create a Nutrient From for MESZ. When finished, select Save Changes. Edit Data will have two new columns as shown below.
Select the Formulation tab in the upper left hand corner. In the Formulation Request grid, two new options are available.
To allow form-U-net to use the Least Cost Formulation method, specify the quantity in the Phosphate cell. To specify an amount from a specific item, enter the quantity for the item added by the Nutrient From.
Note: When using the Nutrient From request of a specific item, the quantity of that item will be supplied. As a result, there’s a risk of over-formulating due to the other nutrients, such as N and S in this example. For more information on addressing over-formulation, review Formulation Results in form-U-net Are Incorrect.
In the example below, 20 Lbs. each of Phosphate will be requested from DAP and MESZ.
