Is The Whole Job Just Completely Buggered?

Kiwi Pete · Apr 7, 2019

Kevtherev said:
[emoji23]
What’s lime per ton now £28-30?
Cheap when you compare it to poorer crop and grass yields.

It takes a long while (and a lot of tramped in OM) before pH will stabilise without lime

Rough rule of thumb, we've "wasted" about 4 tons of dry matter each year for the last 3 years to raise pH from 5.6 to 6.1, so that puts lime as a very cheap input for an extractive farming system - SOM has risen from about 8% to about 11%, hence the free hydrogens have much more humus to attach to, the same effect as adding carbonate via lime.
You simply cannot replicate this if using synthetic fert, so lime is an absolute must for most farms - as @silverfox says if you need told this basic stuff, then you should be outski

Cab-over Pete · Apr 7, 2019

livestock 1 said:
Is that mag or calcium? My agronomist is advising calcium for me now as I have put mag on regularly in the past and the mag is now too high. I have been putting calcium on the last few times

Calcium. Best quality from The Cotswolds

livestock 1 · Apr 7, 2019

Cab-over Pete said:
Calcium. Best quality from The Cotswolds

We are using it here now. Father used to say it was no use. He only entertained mag. Probably why I can’t use it anymore

livestock 1 · Apr 7, 2019

Cab-over Pete said:
Calcium. Best quality from The Cotswolds

I have a freind who insists on using that prilled lime. I don’t rate it. Seems a dear way to buy it. Can’t see the neutralising value being any better. How do you rate it?

Cab-over Pete · Apr 7, 2019

Don’t ask....

But since you ask, I’m with you 100%. Yes, I’m biased, but I can also count. I’m reasonably sure he will have to go back to bulk lime sometime in the future. Certainly if his land used any amount of lime in the past anyway.

That’s what farmers around here have found. It used to worry me greatly 10-12 years ago, but I actually like customers trying it now. Better for them to see it fails than me trying to tell them.

livestock 1 · Apr 7, 2019

Cab-over Pete said:
Don’t ask....

But since you ask, I’m with you 100%. Yes, I’m biased, but I can also count. I’m reasonably sure he will have to go back to bulk lime sometime in the future. Certainly if his land used any amount of lime in the past anyway.

That’s what farmers around here have found. It used to worry me greatly 10-12 years ago, but I actually like customers trying it now. Better for them to see it fails than me trying to tell them.

Thanks for the info. My calcium lime spread by my contractor and freind is £17 a tonne if it’s a decent order a few hundred tonnes the quarry is about a mile away. His bagged prilled stuff is £70 a tonne. Quite unbelievable

DRC · Apr 7, 2019

I use both . I’m having some bigger fields done with lime at £24.50 spread per ton, but use calcifert on smaller fields or near houses, or if the ph test comes back slightly low, say 6.4.
I know someone who only uses calcifert and puts it on before OSR in the rotation.

livestock 1 · Apr 7, 2019

Something Interesting if you rent a farm in Scotland you have to have it ph tested and keep it limed as part of the tenancy

DRC · Apr 7, 2019

livestock 1 said:
Thanks for the info. My calcium lime spread by my contractor and freind is £17 a tonne if it’s a decent order a few hundred tonnes the quarry is about a mile away. His bagged prilled stuff is £70 a tonne. Quite unbelievable

Calcifert is about £140 ton, but you don’t put a ton and a half or two tons on like lime.
I use 3 to 4 cwt/acre

livestock 1 · Apr 7, 2019

silverfox said:
I use both . I’m having some bigger fields done with lime at £24.50 spread per ton, but use calcifert on smaller fields or near houses, or if the ph test comes back slightly low, say 6.4.
I know someone who only uses calcifert and puts it on before OSR in the rotation.

Do the people in the houses not like dusty windows

livestock 1 · Apr 7, 2019

silverfox said:
Calcifert is about £140 ton, but you don’t put a ton and a half or two tons on like lime.
I use 3 to 4 cwt/acre

How can the neutralising value be anywhere near as good with such a small amount rate?

livestock 1 · Apr 7, 2019

silverfox said:
Calcifert is about £140 ton, but you don’t put a ton and a half or two tons on like lime.
I use 3 to 4 cwt/acre

That’s where it is then. It was a while ago when I asked about it

livestock 1 · Apr 7, 2019

Cab-over Pete said:
Don’t ask....

But since you ask, I’m with you 100%. Yes, I’m biased, but I can also count. I’m reasonably sure he will have to go back to bulk lime sometime in the future. Certainly if his land used any amount of lime in the past anyway.

That’s what farmers around here have found. It used to worry me greatly 10-12 years ago, but I actually like customers trying it now. Better for them to see it fails than me trying to tell them.

Is there any decent quality slag about?

Billboy1 · Apr 7, 2019

livestock 1 said:
Is there any decent quality slag about?

Some on the oooh thread [emoji106]

livestock 1 · Apr 7, 2019

Billboy1 said:
Some on the oooh thread [emoji106]

Haha I did think about that too

Cab-over Pete · Apr 7, 2019

Slag looks good on paper but I sometimes think it’s way too coarse and way too hard to fully break down in the soil. That said, customers do like it and see a difference

Sandy · Apr 7, 2019

livestock 1 said:
Something Interesting if you rent a farm in Scotland you have to have it ph tested and keep it limed as part of the tenancy

Not here you don’t.

livestock 1 · Apr 7, 2019

Sandy said:
Not here you don’t.

I’ve seen it in the tenancy agreements advertised

Derrick Hughes · Apr 7, 2019

Oathill Quary is Screened lime is there any where in the Cotswolds you can get fine ground

glasshouse · Apr 7, 2019

Farfrae said:
So a thread about poor returns in farming has deteriorated into criticism (probably by receipents of public hand outs and favourable inheritance tax legislation) of those who receive benefits no doubt fuelled by the main stream media (which just happens to be owned by billionaires).

Meanwhile not a peep about a large family of German immigrants, the monarchy, who cost us around £345m a year. Why are we spending millions of pounds on Katherine Worsley (the Duchess of Kent) or Marie von Reibnitz (Princess Michael of Kent) ?

Funny old world when the media can influence you to wave a coloured flag on the end of a stick and shovel cash at one bunch living in palaces but has conditioned you to judge and revile those at the other end of the scale (who may have suffered traumas such as physical and sexual abuse, poverty, illness and many other issues that you have never encountered).

I cant believe they survived ww1 given the fate of european monarchy and the whole of britain hated germans

Is The Whole Job Just Completely Buggered?

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Up to 25%

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100% I’ve had enough of farming!

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