What are your thoughts on the fertiliser price s for 2022

funkey_monkey

@Ginger@ginger22 - can you say either here or via a pm how much you paid for the bacteriolit?

There is an alternative that I think @Say my name was using but for the life of me I can't find the thread.

Is there any danger that these products could have a negative effect on the ground that could be difficult to rectify? Seems hard to believe that they can do so much good with little or no risk.

Say my name

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120032458#Comment_120032458

This is what I got.

http://agriking.com/pit-king/

Really though we should all be making our own Lactic Acid Bacteria but times you need contacts in companies too. They're probably reading this but there's posters on forum4farming making their own LAB from washing white rice and molasses.

funkey_monkey

I was reading that earlier tonight but tbh home brew doesn't sit well with me at this early stage.

Hershall

⁰⁰

ginger22

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120032458#Comment_120032458

To be honest I dont remember but it was expensive. Didnt do much for the slurry as regards making it easier to agitate. Have used the "slurrycal" cubicle lime in the past found it good. Using the "Pit-King" from Agriking this year. Seems to be working. Can see some froth on top of the slurry. "Bacillus Subtilis" is the active ingredient in it. Worth looking it up on Google. It is also used in China and India as a feed additive to prevent disease in pigs and poultry. I got some from China, planning to add it to the calf milk replacer this Spring.

funkey_monkey

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120032486#Comment_120032486

Is that for ease pf mixing and spreading - doesn't seem to make any of the claims that LAB or Bacteriolit make.

Found this on Bacterolit on their website - in 2015 one tonne cost €3,800 which was sufficient to treat 250,000 gallons or 100 acres at 2,500 gallons to the acre.

https://www.soil.ie/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Article-IFJ-%E2%80%94-Reseeding-Soil-Health.pdf

Edit: found the one I was thinking about - does anyone know about it?

https://www.supersoil.ie/

Maybe all this needs it own thread?

Say my name

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120042344#Comment_120042344

Big difference in the price to treat slurry between those products though.

As Ginger says though there's probably p,k coming in at that price. The more varied biology in the mix will turn soil to neutral pH anyway and any lime looked for won't be because of pH requirements but for Calcium:Magnesium balancing and possibly just to add a rockdust element to feed biology and get N that way.

Dinzee Conlee

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120042344#Comment_120042344

I made my own LAB from rice, milk and molasses - was easy enough. Used it in a ferment with some protein and carbon and spray the resultant mix. I didn’t do much, so can’t comment as to whether it was good or not… Twas more to see if twould work as an experiment…

I also bought some of that Sobac batersoil I think it was called, in 25kg bags. Was 2 years ago now - it definitely raised pH. I didn’t notice anything else, was told you’d need to use it for a few years to see a difference? Was expensive at the time, so it only got bought the once. I’d be tempted to buy a few more bags for an awkward piece of ground I have, to see if twould improve it…

I see lads selling liquid seaweed fertiliser, tempted to get some seaweed and see if I can make something from that myself (I am only a few miles from the sea)

@Say my name - Did you make Protozoa tea before? I remember you making something in a big water trough? Maybe twas JDM or something though was it?

I second a vid-joe from @Say my name or better again, an open day… 😉 🙂

Edit : how did you get on with the sea shell fertiliser @Say my name ? Did you notice any difference yet? The big issue I have is how to measure things? Did you say before you use a brix yoke?

Say my name

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120043654#Comment_120043654

How many times can you get Say my name in a post?🤔

I spread the sea shell over the whole farm. It was recommended not to spread lime after for three years. But being me. I went again with two bags (100 kgs) of gran lime in November and 50kgs of burnt lime recently. More so a gut feeling with the wet weather and it has boosted growth. And thinking with the recommendation not to spread lime. It'd be tons per acre not recommended over 150kg per acre. I'll know more really on all the above after soil tests are completed before mid January.

I made jadam microbial solution. Made from seawater, boiled potatoes, deciduous forest soil. Where it was sprayed on there was a growth difference over not. I added it to the slurry tanks too. But it led to the tanks pushing the slurry up through the slats and thickened the slurry. Improved the fertiliser value but this is only through visual anecdotal evidence not lab tested.

I have a brix meter. But I'm not tied to it. Only when if the notion takes me.

You can use the LAB with the seaweed in an ibc tank. Just rinse the seaweed a bit before use and maybe add a bit of molasses and then put one of those brewing one way water valves on the lid of the tank to prevent gas build up. You can use that brew any way you want after. Add to slurry tank or spray on.

Markcheese

I don't know where your based , but if there's a cheesemaker anywhere you then you shouldn't have difficulty getting cheese whey , wether you use it straight or use it as a starter culture , probably best to get it fresh ..

.

Dinzee Conlee

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120043844#Comment_120043844

Yeah, not sure why I tagged you 3 times…

I got some of those fermentation locks - and I used the LAB as you described above. Made some hydrolysate with fish, and some with old soya bean and nettles…

I didn’t spread much of it. Hard to know if it made a lot of difference to be honest in the one field that got some. I suppose the field overall looks a bit healthier maybe…

ginger22

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120044100#Comment_120044100

The thing is that making your own is too time consuming and hit and miss.

All you need is urea, ammonium sulphate, molasses, humates, and possibly seaweed liquid and microbes. All available off the shelf. Put the lot in a mixing tank and pump into the sprayer and off you go. Anything else is messing and time wasting. For commercial farmers it must be easy, simple, fool proof and fast to do. And it works.

Say my name

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120044100#Comment_120044100

Not saying it is. But if the ground is coming from a low base of fertility and biological activity, any applications won't give you that wow factor. Tbh there is no wow factor in all this anyway. It is all culminative though.

Not blowing my own trumpet. But my own grass is as green as can be. Across the road a neighbours sward reseeded 2020 is going yellow. They'd be as conventional as can be. Probably grew more grass than me this year though with more fert applied.

Where the likes of you and those treatments will blow conventional out of the water is in soil testing. You will build p and k and bring up your pH. You'll build Soil Organic Matter (SOM) or for the money minded CARBON. Which in turn will hold onto more soil nitrate. And that carbon means more drought resistance if it ever is a worry.

Ground will show greater water infiltration rates too. So less run off. Better trafficability.

Dinzee Conlee

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120044370#Comment_120044370

Not disagreeing with any of that ginger. But for the likes of me - its as much about the messing 😉

I will say i’m really only a hobby farmer, it’s not my primary income source. So it’s easy for me to afford to be messing about…

stanflt

I use this with urea

stanflt

I will only use foliar fertiliser is the ground has recently and continues to receive slurry- the bio stimulates and fulvic/humic don’t work if there’s not organic matter to convert

stanflt

Only slight issue with foliar has been the much lower protein % of silage made- the dmd and sugars will be higher but p% lower

you will need to add feed grade urea to tmr to balance silage

alps

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120044700#Comment_120044700

How much lower Stan? Can you hold yields with foliar, and what rate and how many applications for say first cut silage?

Say my name

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120044700#Comment_120044700

Did you add ammonium sulphate to the mix?

ginger22

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120044700#Comment_120044700

Our silages this year with foliar tested 14.6%, 15.8% and 19.6% protein. The secret is Sulphur. DMD ranged from 78.8 to 79.4. For the first cut it got a bag of Kieserite and for the other cuts got Ammonium Sulphate sprayed with the Urea, humates, sea weed and microbes.

stanflt

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120045631#Comment_120045631

Hardly a bag of keserite-.recommended rate is 0.5kg per acre

stanflt

3rd cut was 74 dmd and 11% protein- got sulphar

all the research shows that this is normal and you won’t get high p% silage using foliar

p%,is correlated to the amount of n

ginger22

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120045643#Comment_120045643

Kieserite is about 24% sulfur, similar to ammonium sulphate but also contains magnesium as opposed to nitrogen. "The proof of the pudding is in the eating" as they say.

ginger22

All cut would also have received slurry.

stanflt

Lads any chance of posting the silage results- all the Welsh show exactly the same results that I’m receiving

maybe ye aren’t cutting back on the n - I’m only using circa 40% of the normal applications

re keserite you mentioned a bag to the acre - this is hardly correct

stanflt

Foliar application doesn’t work on ground that isn’t receiving organic manure

K.G.

I m led to belive grass in general is testing low in protein past year which is probaly due to lower nitrogen use but it will be intersting to see how this year goes.i have to say that alot of the stuff on here is starting to sound abit like witchcraft-a dash of this ,a kilo of that but that is probaly due to my ignorance but i find it hard to believe that much of it is going to replicate the performance that we are used to seeing from convential fertilizer use .theres alot of talk about banding and derogation going but if fertilizer prices continues to remain high and milk price falls stocking rates will fall anyway as use declines.i am looking at the alternatives that people are using here but i must admit i m lost at this stage with all the different stuff being used.much of it seems to be about using bacteria to break down humus to release it s nutrients but would it be possible for someone to do a little summery or explanation on the basic concepts behind some of these things

jimmy G M

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120045860#Comment_120045860

I agree KG, just to bring it all together could someone open a new thread specifically for this and post an idiots guide as to what to do, sourcing of inputs, application rates, etc, etc. I know all the info is here on boards somewhere across several threads over the past 12 to 18 minths, but it would be a great resource to have it all on one thread over a few posts from those who have the know how. TIA.

Say my name

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120045822#Comment_120045822

It'll work alright. But then I'm coming from it years back and came up the way of N not being in the mix. Everything else was tried and adjusted before N went in the mix.

The only thing if you've no N in the mix and you stop spraying. Growth kind a stops. There's no reserve of N in the soil to keep powering on. But then you hear guys here say they have to keep spreading 20 units each round or growth stops dead. So ...??

On the silage ground I learned from the previous year of foliar. This year I applied 50 units roughly/acre of bag N for both cuts. 500 bales total on 42 acres overall. Not sure if it got a foliar 2nd cut may have without N in the mix.

I had the silage tested but no results back yet. Not sure it'd be much use to the discussion when bag went out.

Over all farm though it worked out 55 units an acre applied for the year. And that is my best result to date. And that's not buying silage like I did the previous year when I was short and still experimenting.

It's a bit pissy that I or anyone has to find this out the hard way and there's nobody ahead to tell how to put the pants on in the morning. But it is what it is. 🤷

K.G.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120045975#Comment_120045975

Fair enough so.judging by the thanks there is more like me but how and ever.