lime or urea?

worker

Member
Should I put on grassland a tonne an acre of lime or 1cwt of urea first? and how long should I wait between each application. thanks
 

Bald Rick

Moderator
Livestock Farmer
Location
Anglesey
You can line any time of the year. Urea has a limited window due to volatilisation when it turns warmer. I would get the urea out now
 

Derrick Hughes

Member
Location
Ceredigion
I regularly put a ton/ac on mine, with a view to keeping it closer to my aim, rather than letting it drop, reducing production (& clover) and then putting twice as much on to try and rectify it. You just end up putting twice as much on, half as often.
I suppose things move on . The old way was stick two ton on and dont waste your time and money with less . What ph do you aim for . Would an extra ton do any harm
 

Two Tone

Member
Mixed Farmer
Urea will only volatilise on alkaline bare soils at temperatures above 15 centigrade. So putting the lime on first is slightly risky. Put your Urea on first. As soon as you can't still see the granules/prills on the surface, give it an extra day then bang the lime on.
 

worker

Member
Urea will only volatilise on alkaline bare soils at temperatures above 15 centigrade. So putting the lime on first is slightly risky. Put your Urea on first. As soon as you can't still see the granules/prills on the surface, give it an extra day then bang the lime on.
ph is quite low and needs two tonne an acre, but my soil consultant says only put on one tonne an acre at a time so don't get huge swings in the ph. It costs £22 per tonne spread whether I put on one tonne or two tonne an acre, so it cost me no more to have it put on in two halves. Thank you all for your replies, I shall put urea on next week just before it rains. We have had no rain in Dorset and cows have been out by day for a week.
 

Derrick Hughes

Member
Location
Ceredigion
ph is quite low and needs two tonne an acre, but my soil consultant says only put on one tonne an acre at a time so don't get huge swings in the ph. It costs £22 per tonne spread whether I put on one tonne or two tonne an acre, so it cost me no more to have it put on in two halves. Thank you all for your replies, I shall put urea on next week just before it rains. We have had no rain in Dorset and cows have been out by day for a week.
With due respect I think your consultant is an idiot
If the ph is low you may as well pee on the field as put a ton on
 

Agrivator

Member
With due respect I think your consultant is an idiot
If the ph is low you may as well pee on the field as put a ton on

But it would take an awful long time to cover the whole field. :censored:

And it's worth noting that lime requirements are normally given as the amount needed to raise the pH after the lime is mixed with the top 6 to 9 inches, i.e. after ploughing and cultivating the lime in.

2t/acre applied to the surface of a grass field takes along time to work down the soil profile, and can in fact lock up trace elements in the short term.
That's why 1t/acre now and 1t/acre in 2 years or so can be more efficient.

So buy the same amount of lime, but spread it at half rate over twice the acres.
 

Agrivator

Member
I must be getting old .I would think nothing of putting 3 ton on . 3 ton over an acre can hardly be seem when its spread
Maybe that was when there was a 50% grant for lime application, and there was a minimum of 3t/acre (or was it 2t/acre?) to qualify for grant.
But where it was sensible, the more astute (or criminal?) farmers, encouraged by an equally astute advisor, pretended to apply 3t/acre over, say, 10 acres, but actually applied 1.5t/acre over 20acres.
 

neilo

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
Montgomeryshire
Fields around here would be around 5.5 .how much would I need to get them to an acceptable level .I ain't playing around with a ton

At pH 5.5 i’d Be putting 2t/ac too (as I did here) but i’d Then be looking to prevent it getting that low again. Putting a ton/ac on when it drops below pH6 again would keep it tickling along, rather than leaving it to get so low again, losing production before you bang it back up again with another 2t.
If grassland comes back at 5.8-5.9 here, it gets a ton/ac when we can fit it in, with the aim of keeping it just over 6. Arable fields are maintained slightly higher.
 

Kiwi Pete

Member
Livestock Farmer
Yeah, thump it on, @Forage Trader

Why compact the soil 3x when once is enough?
May as well put the lime on instead of just driving around pretending to...

... to expect "wild swings in pH" would indicate a depleted soil, as it's calcium carbonate when all's said and done... I'd be scouting for a new soil consultant - but then I'm just a hobby farmer who drives a lime truck :rolleyes:
 
Blimey, that’s some hungry ground then.

Do an experiment. Bang three tonnes per acre on some of it, put two lots of 1 1/2t per acre on the rest, repeat as necessary, testing regularly in the meantime and decide in a few years what worked best.
 

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