As the title says is it too early to spread fertiliser on grazing land. Land is in great condition but just worried it might be to early
We have none out yet, we never would have this early but equally have never seen growth so bad with poor cover across the farm. Just lucky with a new shed we have been able to keep all stock in longer as not needing to free up space for calving. Silage running low so some will have to go out soon regardless.
If we had time would have tried to get a bit out this week ahead of the rain but it didn’t happen.
Must have got an inch of rain here yesterday and last night, with the price of fertilizer you would want to be getting bang for your buck. Fertilizer is a multiplier of growth and not much of that yet
everybody complaining about growth but seem to forget cattle were out longer in the backend. you can’t have it both ways
Very true. There was cattle out well into December. Is there much silage about. Have plenty here.
I usually go with a bag and a half of 18-6-12 for all grassland, spread this past week.
They are two different things. There was more grass there 2 weeks ago. Frost has it all burned. Snow in january took alot too
True for some but we always house late and for the last month or more confine to one area and supplement with silage outside so the bulk of the farm was not grazed any later than average yet there is very poor grass covers. Other years we would have had some stock out over a month ago also and they would have had decent grass but this year it’s way back.
can see the regrowth behind the cows now
heat and rain = growth
Went for a walk across the field yesterday. Nothing there worth talking about and we are on very dry land and needs soft rain badly. We had weanlings on a lot of it till about the 10th of December, so probably contributing to it. So we saved the fodder at the start but looks like we will be using what we saved now. Be well into April now before they be anything grass wise here I'd say unless things change drastically but looking at the forecast it's dry and cooler next week.
Walked farm this morning, extremely disappointed with growth. Yearlings that are out may have to come in if it doesn't pick up.
I had some out and put them back before the rain last week.
Nothing to write home about growth wise at all.
Need to get fertilizer out as soon as it warms a bit.
is 80 units enough? Thought higher to the 100units for silage. Was thinking of going with 3bags of 18-6-12 and a bag of urea for first cut. Trying to build up the indexes.
Is it 80 for old award and 100 for new?
possibly I'm not sure. I got soil samples taken in first week of feb but no results back yet getting bit ridoculus at this stage. will have to go ahead this week regardless.
if you are looking to increase indexes 36 units of K isn’t going to do it
How many indexes of k would it take?
They say 80-100 depending on age of grass, type of grass etc. I've been doing the same on this ground for years and consistently 8-9 bales/ac in mid to late May and soil indexes are staying in the 3s and some bordering 4s. When I was trying to build the indexes I never used straight Nitrogen, every time I went into the field I was giving it a bit of P and K and anytime a field was bare 2000g/ac of slurry.
I know but its better that cut sward - i'm not gonna spend a fortune of 0-7-30 and then urea on top of it. I will be putting a tank there in the next few years and then It will be getting 4k gallons a year in slurry that will move the indexes up. Last year I used 4 bags of cut sward on it and got 10bales to the acre and it was 73% dmd. Also I did shake 2bags to the acre on 10-10-20 on it last sept. Unfortunately there is not one type of fert that hits everything perfectly. Working off a tight budget this year also
I see 10mm of rain promised Friday here, is that ideal or too much for washing in Urea?
Good grass frost here this morning, like others my ground is still very bare, even ground that got slurry is green but no growth. Have fert in the yard for the silage ground gonna wait till next week to get it out now.
how much nitrogen are ye spreading on multispecies this time of year. Didn’t get slurry. Was thinking of putting a bag and a half of 10-10-20 out
whats a good all rounder for bare ground? plenty of sheep and lambs here and i may just go with a bit now across all grazing ground. i presume there no problem spreading fertilizer on fields of sheep and lambs? provided rain coming of course.
it really depends on your soil indexes. If low, then you need more p and k.
But to answer your question 18-6-12 with sulphur is a good all round. But stabbing in the dark without soil samples
i have 24 -2.5-10 with sulphur, here in yard i was going to put out tomorrow ahead of rain. soil samples from 2024 say im index 4 for P and 3 for K. farm is 4 for P on 80% of the ground. has high P any implications?
24s more suited to meadows, 27s would be better if you had it.
What type of fertilizer were you using throughout the years to have a high p level like that? We seem to struggle back this way to keep our p index right
we struggle with p here too. I was at a kt meeting a few years ago and the advisor told us of a vein of land in south Galway that hasn’t needed any p fertiliser for years upon years. It would be a nice situation to be in
Time to get the silage fertilizer out, I was going to go with 4.5 bags of 21/2/12 with sulphur and aim for a mid May cut.
My P's and K's are good, 4 and a 3.
Fields got slurry a few weeks ago.
Should I wait for some rain to be forecast or drive on?
pasture sward across grazing for years but only ever one round maybe a second in july max. it must be just a vein of land, theres one area where all fields are index 4 for P that never gets slurry, it was always known as a famous area of land for lamb fattening in particular, lambs were always said to be gone 3 weeks earlier than other lambs a kilometer away for some reason, but theres nearlly no sheep around here now, all tillage surrounding now. id kill lambs from 12 weeks easy enough at 45-48 kg depending on singles/twins. thats hampshire and suffolk bred lambs anyway.
Did you go ahead with it? seems a heavy dressing on top the slurry.
![Photo of [Deleted User]](https://wb.vanillicon.com/v2/b3dfa450474ae29261c31453ce009d96.svg)
