Slurry spreading in December - what's wrong with it?

Casati

I believe slurry can only be spread until October, but can anybody advise why? I notice at least one farmer locally spreading slurry this week so obviously a law or guideline that isn't enforced or has no real penalty so why do they bother with the cut off dates?

Bass Reeves

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058328141/slurry-spreading-in-december-whats-wrong-with-it

He was probably spreading dairy washings or because of the heavy rainfall durin6thus Autumn several lads ended up with flooded tanks. These farmers had to apply for an exemption to spread because of there tanks being flooded

The reason for spreading before October is because the nutrients will be used up by growing grass. Ideally most nutrients show be returned to tge ground they came off

White Clover

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058328141/slurry-spreading-in-december-whats-wrong-with-it

Bass Reeves has answered your question in his reply. Can I ask what are your bone fide's regarding this subject? We get a lot of troll threads on this forum, especially on long weekends and when non farmers generally have plenty of spare time. After a few posts it becomes apparent that the thread was started by a person in bad faith with an anti farming agenda. So if you wouldn't mind describing what you say you saw in more detail, ie type of equipment being used, approximate application rates etc.

Casati

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121529252#Comment_121529252

I'd guess it was slurry - unless he is agitating dairy washings before spreading? It certainly smelt like slurry too.

Obviously if a farmer can spread dairy washings year round he/ she can just say that's was they were doing. But what's the problem with slurry at this time of year?

Bass Reeves

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121529309#Comment_121529309

I explained in my post above I quote it here again

''The reason for spreading before October is because the nutrients will be used up by growing grass. Ideally most nutrients show be returned to tge ground they came off''

sandman30

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121529344#Comment_121529344

It's attitudes like that, that we are where we are regards derogation. Slurry was meant to be out before the start of October.

Casati

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121529304#Comment_121529304

Sounds like your toast just fell jam side down - I just know I saw a farmer in his yard with an agitator on the back of his tractor, and later heard/ saw it working. The next day he is pumping what I presume to be slurry out of the same place he had the agitator, and then later spreading it in a neighbouring field- if it was a car I could tell you the spec's and year with one glance but all I remember was it was new looking average size tractor and the spreader was red with a dribble attachment thing on the back. I was working in a unit opposite the farm and the yard and fields are all very open. I obviously haven't a clue how to measure application rates

If you spread today would the nutrients not still be used when the grass is growing again - even if that's in a two months time? As another poster said grass is growing now- though in fairness I haven't notice much sign of that around here - but why not leave that up to the farmer to decide what's best for his farm rather than have rules on it?

DBK1

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121529451#Comment_121529451

Why have rules on anything so?

Should we let people decide for themselves what speed they should drive on the roads? Or how many pints they can have before driving?

Casati

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121529483#Comment_121529483

Because of the obvious danger to all other road users... are you inferring slurry spreading is a similar dangerous activity outside of the set months- if so any chance you might explain why??

FintanMcluskey

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121529304#Comment_121529304

when non farmers generally have plenty of spare time.

Silly statement that one.

DBK1

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121529494#Comment_121529494

No I won’t explain because all that information is there for anyone that wants to know it without needing to start up a thread on boards about it 2 days before Christmas.

Go and have a few drinks with friends and enjoy your Christmas and you’ll get far more joy out of it than what you’re at here.

Casati

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121529510#Comment_121529510

Thanks - if a field is water logged I presume no farmer would consider spreading slurry anyway i.e. machinery would rip the field apart. What's the impact of breaking the rules - presuming very little if the rules aren't enforceable or indeed if the rules have no reason

Casati

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121529503#Comment_121529503

Fair enough you don't have to explain anything, but rather than commenting on my honest and valid questions why don't you just crawl back under the rock you came from and stop annoying us?

Siamsa Sessions

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121529751#Comment_121529751

Why are you insulting a regular poster?

I get a sense from your posts that you’re another lad on an anthropology study, going out into the bush and asking the savages questions.

The answers you’re apparently looking for can be found if you spend 10 mins on Google. As said above, you’re not the first to come onto this farmers’ discussion forum and throw leading questions at the natives.

roosterman71

I don't know what to make of this thread! Spreading slurry now isn't allowed. Thems the rules. Some can do it by jumping through unreal hoops to get an exemption after the wet autumn. Outside of that, anyone at it could be fined and/or lose SFP. Plus, they should be reported because this carry on puts the rule abiding farmers in a pickle and get punished by the actions of a very small minority.

White Clover

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121529451#Comment_121529451

That's a very vague and poor description of what you say you saw. I'm certain by now that you're another troll and your OP is bullshit.

HazeDoll

Casati, you should probably by now understand that the farmers on this forum have a deeply ingrained siege mentality. Anybody who isn't one of them is against them.

You might get one or two civil and helpful responses but most of it will be "You're not even a farmer, why don't you shut up?"

Leave them to it.

Jb1989

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121530164#Comment_121530164

Lots of us come here for answers instead of spending 10 mins googling, as you get up to date responses from people on the ground, knowing the slurry situations.

Maybe he's trolling, maybe he's not, but not up to me to tell them to not ask a question on here, maybe other posters here have the right though.

Plenty of farmers well fit to troll on on other threads too I'd imagine. So no need for lads here to be getting worked up. Answer the question or don't answer, but no need for posters here getting annoyed all the time.

roosterman71

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121530299#Comment_121530299

Have you a question or anything to offer to the discussion?

HazeDoll

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121530387#Comment_121530387

I gave solid advice, born of experience, to the OP.

Donald Trump

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121530416#Comment_121530416

The regular posters probably care even less than the man you were paranoid was stealing your land cared about your imaginings then.

It is always amusing though to have completely clueless people thinking they know it all about something they haven't a breeze about.

roosterman71

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121530416#Comment_121530416

You commented. But gave no advice only spouting some generalisation. No doubt knowing it would annoy people on here.

HazeDoll

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121530453#Comment_121530453

OP, this is what I mean.

Seriously Casati, look for advice in the real world. They're not going to help you here.

Donald Trump

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121530476#Comment_121530476

Don't mention it. Whatever happened in the end up to the smelly mice-loving neighbour of yours (or however you described him) whom you thought wanted to steal your mickey mouse patch of grass? Did he get away with his theft of the century?

patsy_mccabe

Calm everyone ............. deep breaths.

Casati

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121530188#Comment_121530188

I answered your question in good faith but the only certainty is that you are trolling me. Why do you bother wasting time posting?

Donald Trump

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121530669#Comment_121530669

Casati, on one hand you are asking very basic questions. Nothing wrong with that. But on the other hand you are able to identify what an agitator is and looks like. Or, at the very least, you know that there exists such a thing as an agitator

Casati

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121530164#Comment_121530164

Boards is a place where people are invited to ask questions to ‘natives’ Im asking stuff that isn’t easy to google nor understood by the general public. Similar to the other poster your goal appears to be draw conclusions about me that are totally wrong and unfounded

Casati

Agitators are used in other industries - food and construction so yeah I’d know what they look like. Why does that matter to anything?

893bet

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121530808#Comment_121530808

Yeah the agitator on the back of a tractor is the same as that used in the food industry. Difficult tell them apart.

I am with trump. There is an agenda. Too many little flags.

But also I don’t care and it’s not really worth the bandwidth to argue.

Casati

Okay better leave it here. Thanks to those that tried to answer my questions, but too many posters just want to waste my time so it’s best if this thread can be closed.

Donald Trump

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121530845#Comment_121530845

Everyone is with Trump

893bet

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121531017#Comment_121531017

MIGA

older by the day

People must remember that winter started early this year. My incalf heifers are inside a month earlier compared to the past few years. I have a lot of storage but it will well full by mid January. And when the tanks are full they have to be spread, wet or dry.

Surely there is no one on here who thinks it's good practice to have animals standing in shiiite up over the slats

@Casati

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121530299#Comment_121530299

That’s not true. It’s as clear as day that the op (@Casati ) is a snake in the grass with a hidden agenda, trying to expose a few hard working lads who they probably regarded as a pushover and intellectually inferior to them and would say something stupid to suit their agenda. Well its backfired as they are not the first ejit to underestimate the hard working farmer and were found out within 2 minutes

Donald Trump

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121530808#Comment_121530808

I just thought that if you are tuned in enough to know what an agitator is, you probably are tuned in enough to find the answer to your question fairly easily. Your average person could probably look at construction site and identify a JCB or a cement mixer. But if they see a little bar on the ground and know "That's a snaptie for shuttering" then they probably know a tiny bit at least.

There is a closed season for spreading slurry because that is the time of year when typically the slurry might be more likely to cause some pollution. The reason is that there is more rain, and the plants are not growing so they do not absorb the nutrients before it can be washed out.

There is a short closed season for dairy washings as well. That one is kind of inconsequential.

893bet

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121531182#Comment_121531182

The purist would say then you don’t have enough storage. Minimum is 16 weeks of you are in the sunny south east and upwards from there. If full mid January you had them housed mid September? Doubtful.

I am not a purist however, this has been a tough year and it ain’t over yet. Jan/feb better be fine months. And it pray it will be an early spring.

deirdremf

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058328141/slurry-spreading-in-december-whats-wrong-with-it

Slurry tends to run off the land in winter owing to higher rainfall and therefore sodden soil.

This year w had a very very wet summer, so may farmers couldn't spread slurry as it would have run straight off the land and into the nearest river.

I'd guess the farmer you saw was taking advantage, legally or not, of the drier conditions to get the slurry out. Although whether his land is dry enough for it to be beneficial and not end up as runoff is a moot point.

alps

It was a bad decision to agitate. The farmer could have reduced the risk by pulling some liquid from the tanks to buy himself enough room for 3 weeks.

Packrat

I'm noticing a trend of posters with no posting history in the forum arriving asking seemingly innocuous questions of fact.

It was going on in the Farm Payments 23 thread the other day which I take particular exception to as that is industry specific for a reason and not a general discussion on the merits or demerits of the CAP.

No other forum has to put up with this level of trolling by bad actors.

It needs to stop @greysides

Grueller

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121531228#Comment_121531228

Wrong as could be there 893. I am in North Wexford here and had heifers and my sucklers housed on 22 September. Cows were on off grazing nearly all of October. I have in excess of 16 weeks and will need to spread as soon as the deadline is over.

Just checked the date there becasue I have a doctors receipt from the day. One of the sucklers kicked the back gate of the trailer being loaded and it ended up buried in my forehead, giving me 7 stitches just under the hairline. Luckily it hit the head, not the nose or jaw.

893bet

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121532436#Comment_121532436

Not looking to get into the in and outs of anyones slurry storage. Being “fully housed” from mid September was a rarity, as you say you were on off grazing for October so not fully housed. Exceptions prove the rule.

And if fully housed from then, you just about have enough to get you to the deadline mid January then you are a little tight on storage in this outlier of a year. Easy get caught this year, not being fully empty as cattle were housed for a week here or there in the summer and then a window to spread never arrived coupled with an early winter.

Sheep breeder

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121529451#Comment_121529451

You say you seen the agitator in the yard working and the farmer could’ve been pumping from one tank to another, here we pump from a small tank to the larger one at times, by the way farming is a very stress free life and weather never comes into and maybe you should try it sometime and see how you would do.

Grueller

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121532554#Comment_121532554

But tanks should be empty on October 1st 893 as you alluded to. That is the great debate this year on another thread. Even in North Wexford I had to carry in about 25% of my storage full on October 1st due to no weather window to spread the tanks where buffer feeding was happening. Add in 9 days of 60 animals in as well. On off grazing was isually as little as 2 to 3 hours a day for the cows.

Reggie.

And don't forget all the rain

Silverdream

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058328141/slurry-spreading-in-december-whats-wrong-with-it

As far as I know there are penalties but I couldn't tell you how much or ever heard of anyone around me getting caught. I wouldn't be worrying about it

The Nutty M

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121531963#Comment_121531963

The screenshot above was in the aviation forum two days ago and is not unique. Every sector that is at risk of governance of emissions is down on agriculture. And these sectors are training the minds of people that everything agriculture is bad. Hence you get the agenda leading questions from posters that feel empowered by Eamon Ryan and his mutterings.

Someone here a while ago described the cow as being an eco-terrorist. It perfectly describes what she is being made out to be.

This new breed of easily influenced little brains struggle to look at the bigger picture. What happens if they get their wish that the cow,the sow and the acre to plough disappear.

Say my name

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121533634#Comment_121533634

And that aviation sector had their emissions not classified as only internal Ireland flights are counted.

Meanwhile the agri sector is the only sector that takes the carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere and puts it into soil, plants, animal, people mass. Agri sector should probably be minus 10% and the aviation sector then 60%.

Farmers were badly let down by and trodden on as they had no money behind them representing them at talks and meetings unlike the others.

Lime Tree Farm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121533701#Comment_121533701

The money is being excessively gathered alright, just not being utilised on our behalf.

GreeBo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121532902#Comment_121532902

What on earth has the second part of your post got to do with the first part?

So bloody defensive its actually offensive as this stage.

ruwithme

Looking at some of the initial replies to the op, one or two here are a bit like watery storage tanks. " easy agitated "

It's one of many threads on a forum. Just because your cynical about it,does not mean your obliged to reply to it. Just move on.

Some if they have their way, will be like Leo & Micheal, wanting to control what people say in their own privacy next.