One of the most significant trends identified in recent publications from the Department of Agriculture, Food and Marine (DAFM) and Teagasc is the confirmation that Irish farmers are starting to use more lime.
So it would seem that, at long last, producers are starting to get back to basics.
Lime is the most undervalued soil conditioner that we can apply to our land. Research going back to the 19th century confirmed its ability to lift inherent soil fertility levels while, at the same time, ensuring that farmers got the best return from the manures and bagged fertilisers they used within their businesses.
What’s more, lime costs a fraction of what it takes to procure and spread nitrogen, potash, phosphate and the other manufactured fertilisers on the market today.
Soil testing before lime
All it takes to ensure that best use is made of lime is to have a series of soil tests undertaken, which will accurately determine the pH status of the soils across the entire scope of a farmed area.
We hear lots of talk today encouraging farmers to invest in new technologies in order to secure higher efficiency levels within their businesses.
And, up to a point, this is true. But one could also argue that such an approach is simply covering over cracks that have been apparent within the industry for many decades.
If we aren’t getting the fundamentals right, how can we hope to make best use of the new technologies that are coming down the line?
Managing resources
Modern agriculture is all about resource management. Farmers must get the best value they can from all the inputs they use within their businesses.
Fundamentally, this includes livestock manures and chemical fertilisers.
The overarching fact that connects up all these dots is the use of lime to maintain soil pH vales at optimal levels. For years, many farmers in this part of the world seemed to have forgotten this fundamental reality.
This was partly because of the message sold to them back in the day that bagged fertiliser was the cheap and convenient fix for all their production-related problems.
But in 2021, chemical fertilisers are not the cheap option they once were.
Yes, these inputs continue to have a key role to play within production agriculture. But it’s reassuring to know that farmers are, at long last, waking up again to the reality that lime – good old calcium carbonate – is the one input that they cannot overlook as they plan for a sustainable future.