Maintaining a good soil fertility status is the cornerstone of dairy production systems or any farm production system, and this fact must be remembered as we enter the winter months.
Having a good soil fertility will help with the uptake of nutrients and is the key to utilising soil and reducing your emissions as efficiently as possible.
Now is the time to take action and use the soil sample information to make a plan to manage soil fertility in order to get the best out of your grass in 2025.
In today’s climate where you are restricted on the amount of fertiliser you can spread and the urge to decrease reliance on chemical fertiliser, soil fertility is going to be the driver of production.
Soil fertility
Increasing your soil pH has the potential to reduce your nitrogen (N) fertiliser requirements by 50-70kg N/ha per year, according to Teagasc.
For the establishment of clover, the soil fertility needs to be at optimum levels in order for the plant to persist and survive.
Ideally, soil pH for clover is between 6.3 and 6.5, while soil indexes for phosphorus (P) and potassium (K) should be three or four.
Over the last number of years, farmers have learned that establishing and maintaining clover in grass swards can be difficult.
However, the biggest problem in its establishment in the first place, is soil fertility, so areas of the farm that are marked for reseeding in the near future should be targeted for soil fertility correction.
If we let our soil fertility slip, it will likely lead to the running down of soil nutrient reserves, which will negatively impact N use efficiency and grass yields in the coming years.
Farmers need to prevent this from happening and put plans in place to protect the productivity and the long-term sustainability of their farm.
Action
There should be no reason for not having your soil tested, as you cannot apply accurately to the soil if you don’t know what nutrients are lacking.
If you don’t have any soil tests already, you should be acting straight away. A plan should be put in place now to curate a proper nutrient management plan.
Farmers should firstly focus on correcting soil pH, and secondly on getting the most out of their slurry and manures by identifying what is needed most.
Finally, a suitable P and K fertiliser should be selected to maintain the farm’s soil fertility.
Lime should be spread to correct soil pH, and farmers can spread slurry before the lime application, but it is advised to leave a 10-day gap between the two applications.
Slurry should not be spread after lime application for at least three months, meaning a plan must be put in place before spreading lime.
However, spreading lime after urea is not an issue, however, if lime is spread before the urea is applied, farmers should wait at least three months before spreading urea again.