NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- In fertilizer, as in life, three's a crowd, and Agrium (AGU) redoubled its effort Thursday to grab hold of CF Industries (CF) - Get Report after the latter decided it was time to turn away from its longtime hostile target, Terra Industries (TRA) .

The three-way Fertilizer Wars thus became the two-way Fertilizer Battle.

Shortly after CF issued its capitulatory press release, Agrium released its own statement, reiterating its desire to acquire CF and repeating its offer price, which it has called its "best and final:" $45 in cash and one Agrium share for each share of CF stock outstanding. The bid values CF at $110.32 per share -- or about 18% more than CF's closing stock price Thursday. CF's management has repeatedly dismissed the offer as substandard.

Analysts and investors -- basically all of Wall Street -- have

long discounted the notion that any deal in the Fertilizer Wars would ever be struck

. The wide spreads between the offer prices and the trading prices of Terra and CF stock indicated as much.

On Friday, investors did send CF shares up 4% to $96.86, closing the distance between it and the Agrium bid price at least a little. CF's best defense against Agrium, after all, which made its initial move for CF last February, has always been a potential acquisition of Terra.

Said Agrium boss Mike Wilson in the company's Thursday press release, "We remain fully committed to acquiring CF and believe the CF board of directors has failed to uphold its stockholders' interests by continuing to ignore Agrium's strategically and financially compelling offer... We believe CF stockholders are entitled to the opportunity to benefit from our offer, which they have consistently supported."

For the first time, Agrium, based in Calgary, named on Thursday the two candidates it has put up for election to CF's board: L. Kenny Cordell, a former CEO of

United Agri Products

, and Michael Ducey, the non-executive chairman of

Texas Petrochemicals

. A vote will take place at CF's next annual meeting, which the company has yet to schedule. (Agrium will also ask shareholders at the meeting to kill the poison-pill provision that CF installed as one of its defense tactics.)

Even if shareholders elect the pair of dissidents to CF's staggered board, Agrium will be far short of a majority. Indeed, to make any progress, Agrium might have to sweeten its offer again, said Dahlman Rose analyst Charles Neivert in a note to clients Friday morning. He added that Agrium's current offer price is just 7% more than the 52-week high of $102.89 that CF shares touched on Monday.

A few signs over the months have moved in Agrium's favor: In October, shareholders of CF tendered some 63% of the company outstanding stock to Agrium in its tender offer for the company -- a response that Agrium trumpeted and that CF called tepid. Agrium has since extended the tender for another five weeks.

Then, in December, Agrium took steps to clear antitrust regulatory hurdles by agreeing to sell some assets (two anhydrous ammonia storage terminals, one in Illinois, the other in the Pacific Northwest), per a request from the U.S. Federal Trade Commission. "The only remaining impediment to conclude this mutually beneficial transaction is the continued refusal of the CF board to meet with us," Agrium boss Wilson said at the time.

M&A heavy-hitters have flocked to the fertilizer wars. A team from

Goldman Sachs

(GS) - Get Report

, led by Tim Ingrassia, one of the firm's top dealmakers, is advising Agrium. White-shoe law firm Skadden Arps is representing CF. And Skadden archenemy Wachtel Lipton, whose Wall Street superlawyer Marty Lipton invented the poison pill, has Terra as a client.

Friday morning, Agrium shares were trading at $62.13, down 4%, while Terra shares were moving at $33.40, up 0.6%.

-- Written by Scott Eden in New York

RELATED STORIES:

>>Potash to Pace Ag Stocks in 2010

>>Fertilizer 2010: Five Stocks to Watch

>>Fertilizer War Over! CF Ends Pursuit of Terra

Follow TheStreet.com on

Twitter

and become a fan on

Facebook.

Scott Eden has covered business -- both large and small -- for more than a decade. Prior to joining TheStreet.com, he worked as a features reporter for Dealmaker and Trader Monthly magazines. Before that, he wrote for the Chicago Reader, that city's weekly paper. Early in his career, he was a staff reporter at the Dow Jones News Service. His reporting has appeared in The Wall Street Journal, Men's Journal, the St. Petersburg (Fla.) Times, and the Believer magazine, among other publications. He's also the author of Touchdown Jesus (Simon & Schuster, 2005), a nonfiction book about Notre Dame football fans and the business and politics of big-time college sports. He has degrees from Notre Dame and Washington University in St. Louis.