what fertilizer?

1chippy

Could someone help explain to me how to go about picking a fertilizer to suit our setup. The main block is low in k but ok otherwise. I have spread the majority of this with pig and cattle slurry mix over the most of it, between autumn and last week half will be used for silage and the rest for grazing. The other block was reseeded last year and is ok in everything and used for grazing.
Reading up i'm getting that i need n125 p20 k120 maximum plus 10kg/ha for each index that its low. For silage ground. Cant really get a whole pile on grazing ground bar for dairy cows.
Would anyone be able to advise me on what my best options would be . With the price of fertilizer i dont really want to be wasting it.
was going to go with little and often moreso than a blanket spread but cant really get my head round what to use.
Cheers.

bob charles

1chippy wrote: »

Could someone help explain to me how to go about picking a fertilizer to suit our setup. The main block is low in k but ok otherwise. I have spread the majority of this with pig and cattle slurry mix over the most of it, between autumn and last week half will be used for silage and the rest for grazing. The other block was reseeded last year and is ok in everything and used for grazing.
Reading up i'm getting that i need n125 p20 k120 maximum plus 10kg/ha for each index that its low. For silage ground. Cant really get a whole pile on grazing ground bar for dairy cows.
Would anyone be able to advise me on what my best options would be . With the price of fertilizer i dont really want to be wasting it.
was going to go with little and often moreso than a blanket spread but cant really get my head round what to use.
Cheers.

So you have spread all your farm with cattle or pig slurry? take no notice of what the soil analysis it saying and take more notice of what you are growing from what you currently apply to the soil. What quantities of slurry did you apply. Whatever you do, dont go over board with the pig slurry, couple '000 gls per season is more than enough per acre, allot will depend on the quality of both slurries. If your feeding poor silage you will have poor slurry. 2/3K gls of good slurry is plenty for a growing season of P and K if not stocked heavily

1chippy

Thanks for that. basically what your suggesting is nitrogen on the land with slurry. I put out around 2-3k gallons of half pig half cattle slurry. average silage with animals getting aprox1kg of meal per day. (average taking cows and all). Any suggestions on the reseeded ground, a lad was telling me to load on the fertilizer this year for benefits down the line.

just do it

For grazing ground my understanding is to get the P and K out in advance of growth (P and K are good for root structure) and then top up with N as the grazing season goes on. Sounds like you've done that already with the slurry. Also your grazing stock will contribute P and K.

Alot also depends on your stocking rate and therefore your grass requirement. Us beef/ suckler lads are behind our dairy counterparts on grass utilisation.

Good loser

Would spread 16% P and nitrogen instead of NPK.

Cattle slurry has high K low P; piggy slurry the reverse.

Dilution must be factored in.

bob charles

you can apply more N to the reseed if you so wish to drive on growth. What you have applied in slurry should be enough to cover everything for this season outside of N. Can always go with slurry mid season, something I like doing myself as it just seems to freshen things a bit. This talk about building reserves is a load of crap. fertilise for offtake is the most efficient both financially and biologically