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Anhydrous ammonia, US retail
$945/ton
+22% y/y
Potash, US retail
$495/ton
+2% y/y
Vancouver spot sulphur
~$1,040/ton
peak $1,090
Corn needed to buy a ton of NH₃
197bushels
at $4.80/bu
Illinois corn operator return
$36/acre, 2027
from $59 in 2026
Highlights
  • This is not a broad fertiliser crisis, and treating it as one leads to the wrong purchase. Anhydrous ammonia, the main nitrogen product, is +22% year on year at $945 a ton, while potash is +2% at $495 S. The shock sits in nitrogen and in the sulphur that phosphate production consumes. Potash is outside it, for a reason that is political rather than industrial.
  • Growers judge fertiliser by what it costs in grain rather than in dollars, because grain is what pays for it. A ton of anhydrous now costs 197 bushels of corn at the USDA season-average price of $4.80 KR. The ratio of nitrogen cost to corn price is 0.121, in the upper third of the range the standard agronomic rate tables cover, and at that level those tables pull the profit-maximising nitrogen rate down by roughly 15 to 25 pounds an acre against a normal year KR.
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