advise

maestroamado

I have 6 acres with my house which i tried several different things with over the last 10 years with more failure than success, over the whole of this period there has being about 16 bags of 10-10-20 that was 8 at two different times.
A family member used use the field for natural meadow but he has finished with farming.
For the first time last year i let this field and the young farmer made silage, this year he wants to make 2 separate cuts which means he will put loads of chemical fertilizer.
My question will this do long term damage to the field which for all intents and purposes is now organic.
I do want to support this young farmer and he is paying me bit i do not want to have my field damaged in the process.

Any advise appreciated

Miname

maestroamado wrote: »

I have 6 acres with my house which i tried several different things with over the last 10 years with more failure than success, over the whole of this period there has being about 16 bags of 10-10-20 that was 8 at two different times.
A family member used use the field for natural meadow but he has finished with farming.
For the first time last year i let this field and the young farmer made silage, this year he wants to make 2 separate cuts which means he will put loads of chemical fertilizer.
My question will this do long term damage to the field which for all intents and purposes is now organic.
I do want to support this young farmer and he is paying me bit i do not want to have my field damaged in the process.

Any advise appreciated

It sounds like he will be doing it good rather than bad. Ground needs replenishment every year. Fertiliser isn't a bad thing.

djmc

He will be doing you a big favor you couldn't do more (other than a full reseed) to increase the value of a field than add fertilizer and cut silage as it will add nutrients to the soil increase soil fertility and the grass will outgrow any weeds improving the pasture and grass.
I don't think it will affect the organic status unless you are a fully organic certified farmer drawing the organic grant.
I think it takes 2 years for newly added ground to be classed as organic and only after organic slurry or no chemical fertilizers are added.
The fact it's already organic with years makes no difference it still will take 2 years.

maestroamado

thanks for replies, i am out of my league with this and welcome the opinions.
i am probably watching too much tv as i thought using too much fertilizer may damage the ground.

regards

djmc

All Crops wheat potatos grass or silage take nutrients out of the ground when they grow.
Fertilizer puts the nutrients back in again whether it's chemical fertilizer from a bag or organic fertilizer like slurry.
It is needed to feed the soil and grow the crop.
Farmers don't tend to put out too much fertilizer because it's too expensive to be loosing to the environment the crop will take what it needs to grow and excess will be held in the soil until needed and a percentage of nitrogen can be lost to the air and leach out with rain water into streams and rivers which would be a waste of money as well as bad for river aqualife and fish.
For that reason the department of agricultural have strict regulations on how much fertilizer a farmer can spread and keep track of it through nitrates regulations so they know exactly how much fertilizer is going where just in case some clueless farmer is wasting fertilizer and money putting out excessive amounts.
Organic farming can only put out slurry from organic animals but I don't know of any independent research that proves that it's better than chemical fertilizer.
I think it's more of a lifestyle choice and people want food from the most natural way possible as there is too much chemicals and additives in most everything we eat already.