Spreading Lime

Hobo85

Hi All,
Hope someone on here a little more familiar with Farming can advise me. We are in REPS and Soil sampling has advised that we need to put out lime. The land varies and i will try to summarise below.

Plot 1- Marginal Lands, quite peaty, majority has serious issues with rushes and could be regarded as a wildlife habitat. Half of which is subject to flooding due to the river which flows alongside. REPS advise 3.04 Tonnes/Acre over 22 Acres which amounts to 54 Tonnes by the end of Year 2 and an additional 14 Tonnes by the end of Year 4. If you were familiar with these lands you could appreciate that 1/2 is difficult to travel on by foot let alone a tractor to spread the lime. This land is primarily used to let Cows and Calves graze with a few sheep for good measure.

Plot 2 - Uplands, brown clays, some marginal as above, primarliy used for grazing heifers bullocks etc and fattening lambs. Used to cut the silage on these lands and have given it a break the past few years but may return to take grass up again in a few years. REPS advise 3.54 Tonnes/Acre over 24 Acres which amounts to 54 Tonnes by the end of Year 2 and an additional 27 Tonnes by the end of Year 4. These lands are pretty accessible so spreading lime is no problem here.

Based on the above, does the rate look excessive and is there any point putting it on plot 1. Also when is the best time to spread?

We've been getting some mixed opinions from those more familiar with spreading lime/getting lime spread or not as the case may be! Any opinions based on experience would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

jt65

Hobo85 wrote: »

Hi All,
Hope someone on here a little more familiar with Farming can advise me. We are in REPS and Soil sampling has advised that we need to put out lime. The land varies and i will try to summarise below.

Plot 1- Marginal Lands, quite peaty, majority has serious issues with rushes and could be regarded as a wildlife habitat. Half of which is subject to flooding due to the river which flows alongside. REPS advise 3.04 Tonnes/Acre over 22 Acres which amounts to 54 Tonnes by the end of Year 2 and an additional 14 Tonnes by the end of Year 4. If you were familiar with these lands you could appreciate that 1/2 is difficult to travel on by foot let alone a tractor to spread the lime. This land is primarily used to let Cows and Calves graze with a few sheep for good measure.

Plot 2 - Uplands, brown clays, some marginal as above, primarliy used for grazing heifers bullocks etc and fattening lambs. Used to cut the silage on these lands and have given it a break the past few years but may return to take grass up again in a few years. REPS advise 3.54 Tonnes/Acre over 24 Acres which amounts to 54 Tonnes by the end of Year 2 and an additional 27 Tonnes by the end of Year 4. These lands are pretty accessible so spreading lime is no problem here.

Based on the above, does the rate look excessive and is there any point putting it on plot 1. Also when is the best time to spread?

We've been getting some mixed opinions from those more familiar with spreading lime/getting lime spread or not as the case may be! Any opinions based on experience would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

i would get about 60 ton

1.5 ro 2 ton on the better half of plot 1 and the remainder on plot 2

spreading more than 2 ton in 1 pass is a bit of a waste & also could cause the surface to get very soft

repeat in 2 to 3 years until ph is correct

Don't know if this will satisfy tour reps requirements though

anytime from now on is grand

sorry in a hurry but at least i bumped the thread for u

Farmer Pudsey

My understanding is that anything over 2 tons of lime/acre is now frowned on by agronomists as it upsets soil ecology. Spreading lime on land like taht is alwys an issue. If it is for REPS is your plan virtually not finished no new reps plans for last 3-4 years.

On land like this if you cannot spread lime at present you will never be anle to spread. I think granlim/g-lime type products have the require flexibility on this type of land. What way is your other soil fertility index's

Recently talking to a small time tillage man. He had 12 acre rented about 4 years ago on conacre. It was in mixed spuds/veg previously. When he rented it he soil tested its ph was 5.4. As it was conacre and while fairly sure he would have it for the medium term he reckoned he could not risk using ordinary ag lime. He put 2 bags of granlime year one, 2 bags year two and at the start of year 3 he soil tested it as he was planting maize. The ph ahd risen to 6.3. He has not tested since but applied another 2 bags/acre and has dropped back to 1/acre this year.

It is somthing I suspected for a while that bag lime works better than expected not sure why. Would like to see some independent testing done on land. But if his reading were replicated across other lands it would blow bulk lime away. I think he was advised 3-4 tons/acre as well. Was back last spring when we were discussing it.

Hobo85

Guys, many thanks for taking the time out of your day to advise. Your coments are greatly appreciated and very helpful and gives me some food for though in the coming weeks......while the cows are stripping it bare!

The little bit of research i had done prior to my post suggested that standard practice seems to be max 2T/Acre as you have mentioned. We have a quantity of lime purchased and awaiting call-off so i think the granulated stuff is out the window for now anyway.

Pudsey, i dont have the fertility index to hand, i'm away at the minute and as i think you may have gathered i might be a little behind as regards the plan!

JT, i think your advice is sensible, given the fact that the lower area of plot 1 will be liable to flooding from now on and we already have some lime purchased.

Thanks again, and if you guys hear of anything which you think may be of benefit while out and about please do share

keep going

Any of you lads involved in the spreading spree that went on last year , did you see a response this year

micraX

keep going wrote: »

Any of you lads involved in the spreading spree that went on last year , did you see a response this year

Well we spread in the spring, it takes about 6 months to work. Where the winter cabbage is planted out it was potentialy a clubroot problem, as there has been braccias planted there a little too often in recent years for my liking, but we have not seen any evidence of clubroot in that field at all, and there was perfect conditions for it so it must have worked.

Zoo4m8

keep going wrote: »

Any of you lads involved in the spreading spree that went on last year , did you see a response this year

Went on a spreading spree last year and the year before... Some of the soil test results were scary, in that in one of the samples the testers said they had never seen such a low figure! Record spring barley yields (for us!) last year and very close this year, might have hit last years figures but quite a bit of lodging and subsequent bird damage.

just do it

REPS - If you don't spread fertilizer on some paddocks you don't need to apply the lime. Probably too late for you now though.

Miname

spread on the dry ground and for the other; just get the receipts.