Matt Ubel, standing on his farm near Wheaton, Kansas, motions to the fertilizer spreader he'll use to spread urea fertilizer this spring. Frank Morris hide caption

Frank Morris

Spring planting season is starting across the Northern Hemisphere. But before seeds go into the ground, nutrients go into the soil. Typically nitrogen fertilizer.

"Right now, we're kind of ... we'll be in the thick of it," farmer Matt Ubel said from the cab of his huge green fertilizer spreader near Wheaton, Kansas. "Lot of nitrogen gets put on in the spring."

The high cost of fertilizer and other farming necessities pushed many row crop farmers into the red last year.…