There is no "right" answer. You could use 0 as the low level of the rates (or do a 3-level design for rates), perhaps %? In reality would you ever use 0? Why nod you need to compare to 0 fertilizer? Much depends on what questions you are trying to answer and what are the motivations for the experiment: Pick a winner, or understand causal mechanisms. Whenever someone investigates factors at more than 3 levels, I have this alter ego that pops up and says "pick a winner". I would be much more interested, if in an agricultural setting, on understanding fertilizer type and amount in the face of noise. Underlying soil fertility, soil preparation, ambient conditions, variation in seed, measurement error, etc. I suggest blocking or some other strategy to assess fertilizer effects and to determine ion those effects are consistent over changing noise.
“Unfortunately, future experiments (future trials, tomorrow’s production) will be affected by environmental conditions (temperature, materials, people) different from those that affect this experiment…It is only by knowledge of the subject matter, possibly aided by further experiments (italics added) to cover a wider range of conditions, that one may decide, with a risk of being wrong, whether the environmental conditions of the future will be near enough the same as those of today to permit use of results in hand.”
Dr. Deming
"All models are wrong, some are useful" G.E.P. Box