Slurry

That’s ok. Lots don’t either.
It all basically saying short term solutions are fine but maybe to stop having to keep applying the sticking plasters, the root cause may need looking at. Blah, blah.

Hard to argue with that. The truth is many dairy farms have expanded cow numbers a lot over time because maize and fizz mean you can feed more from the same area. It is in times like these the crunch point is reached. Ive seen places where excessie amounts of slurry are being applied abd ut borks the ground.

LF may have had a point about 1 cow per acre....
 

Cowabunga

Member
Location
Ceredigion,Wales
No amount of docks would put me off taking free slurry. The value of the potash in it is considerable and would more than pay for you to spray every acre for weeds annually. £30 an acre does not buy much P or K these days.

What about the poor little clover? :scratchhead: :cry:

However, in general I agree with you, but there is also the not insignificant little issue of TB and biosecurity to consider. I happen to be clear, but that could change.
 

Derrick Hughes

Member
Location
Ceredigion
What about the poor little clover? :scratchhead: :cry:

However, in general I agree with you, but there is also the not insignificant little issue of TB and biosecurity to consider. I happen to be clear, but that could change.
Have you got the dreaded Dock or not
Docks are a worse curse than a Rush , a Dock aint fussy were it grows
 

Derrick Hughes

Member
Location
Ceredigion
Docks grow on very fertile ground. Yes I have some docks, although less this year than last thanks to Dockstar. Very few dairy farms are dock-free, as you know.
Each tanker load has the potential to contain 1 million Dock seed that can remain dormant and still grow in the soil for 70 years . Thats why most dairy farms have docks
10 docks can soil become a million docks
 
Each tanker load has the potential to contain 1 million Dock seed that can remain dormant and still grow in the soil for 70 years . Thats why most dairy farms have docks
10 docks can soil become a million docks

The docks are already in your seed bank. Take the nutrients and save money on fertiliser, then spend a tenner on docks. Spray the lot annually you will be saving big money.
 

Cowcorn

Member
Mixed Farmer
Slurry is great on arable land makes my continous wheat yield like a first wheat. Id take extra if ground was fit to travel before ploughing . Took in a large amount of dung from a cattle farmer last spring it grew a great crop but wild oats came with it so nothing is free really!!
 

Spear

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
North Devon
Well I’ve given up reading all the posts in this thread.
.
.
What a ridiculous bunch of 3 yr old kids you are behaving like.

Maybe you think you’re being clever but to everyone looking in, you just look stupid.

The op asked a question, surely not unreasonable to get an answer, ideally from people that know what they’re talking about rather than those that do not.

If people can’t post without attacking other members on here maybe they shouldn’t be posting at all.

Grow up. There’s enough crap in this world without the need to make more


*rant over*
 

Ffermer Bach

Member
Livestock Farmer
I don’t think they’re be some non EU utopian world, where every farm would have 18 months slurry storage . I bet the NVZ rules are gold plated by, you’ve guessed it Defra or the welsh equivalent .
in my experience, Westminster "gold plates" the rules coming over from Brussels, then the Welsh Assembly Government "gold plates" the rules/guidance from Westminster, so to a large extent we have ourselves as a nation to blame for the ridiculous rules we have (I am talking about rules for compliance with training funding, but I am sure that area is a microcosm of all of the UK bureaucracy).

I will also add, it has been ridiculously wet this autumn, nearly every day the rain gauge shows 1".

I do think injection/trailing shoe is the way to go, however the ground is too wet to even get a tractor on now. Answer over the fence spreading.
 

neilo

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
Montgomeryshire
The docks are already in your seed bank. Take the nutrients and save money on fertiliser, then spend a tenner on docks. Spray the lot annually you will be saving big money.

I thought you’d stepped off the chemical farming gravy train these days? That tenner an acre for dock sprays, several times, also takes out the clover (& any of the ‘herbs’ that seem to be getting popular for sward inclusion these days), meaning you have to use more N to maintain output.

I have a field that the previous tenant sublet to a local dairy farmer for maize. After that farmer reseeded it, it was smothered in docks, which I am still battling with 7 years later. The P&K from the slurry was all removed by the maize crop, leaving the field with indices at zero, and stubbornly refusing to move despite only ever grazing it.
Two good doses of Fibrophos have finally shifted it up a notch, without bringing any more docks in, the docks are getting down to (extensive) spot/patch spraying, and clover is slowly getting re-established. After ten years, I hope to have repaired the damage done from that slurry & maize.
 

Derrick Hughes

Member
Location
Ceredigion
I thought you’d stepped off the chemical farming gravy train these days? That tenner an acre for dock sprays, several times, also takes out the clover (& any of the ‘herbs’ that seem to be getting popular for sward inclusion these days), meaning you have to use more N to maintain output.

I have a field that the previous tenant sublet to a local dairy farmer for maize. After that farmer reseeded it, it was smothered in docks, which I am still battling with 7 years later. The P&K from the slurry was all removed by the maize crop, leaving the field with indices at zero, and stubbornly refusing to move despite only ever grazing it.
Two good doses of Fibrophos have finally shifted it up a notch, without bringing any more docks in, the docks are getting down to (extensive) spot/patch spraying, and clover is slowly getting re-established. After ten years, I hope to have repaired the damage done from that slurry & maize.
This is my experience, i would also say as a dairy farmer we had no docks so no idea where dairy farmers get them from in the 1st place
So beware , if you are offered slurry or rent land to a dairy farmer . Have a look over his hedge first
 

neilo

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
Montgomeryshire
I'm afraid it isn't.

The solution to this pollution is better management, contingency or better design - simples.

The storage requirement needed now does already have a substantial contingency built in. When you work out the calculation you are supposed to allow for the amount of rainwater that you haven’t managed to exclude from the system, and dairy washings, etc. Then you have to have enough storage (is it 4 months outside of NVZ areas?) for far longer than the ‘closed’ period when you aren’t allowed to spread any.

Of course, it could be argued that the contingency needs to be extended, or spreading regulations tightened further, but it should be remembered that this is an almost unprecedented prolonged wet spell, even for Wales (local rainfall figures are used in the capacity requirement).
Just last winter was very different indeed, for example. Which is the norm to base these contingency plans? Last winter +50%, or this one +50%?
 
Last edited:

neilo

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
Montgomeryshire
This is my experience, i would also say as a dairy farmer we had no docks so no idea where dairy farmers get them from in the 1st place
So beware , if you are offered slurry or rent land to a dairy farmer . Have a look over his hedge first

Comes in through bought in hay, straw & silage perhaps?;)

I’ve seen some awful stuff getting hidden under black wrap round these parts.?
 
Location
East Mids
Well I’ve given up reading all the posts in this thread.
.
.
What a ridiculous bunch of 3 yr old kids you are behaving like.

Maybe you think you’re being clever but to everyone looking in, you just look stupid.

The op asked a question, surely not unreasonable to get an answer, ideally from people that know what they’re talking about rather than those that do not.

If people can’t post without attacking other members on here maybe they shouldn’t be posting at all.

Grow up. There’s enough crap in this world without the need to make more


*rant over*
yeah I think that the mods should set up a thread called 'Five year old's corner' or similar, and all posts that are just personal bickering are transferred into that. How about it ?
 

SFI - What % were you taking out of production?

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  • 100% I’ve had enough of farming!

    Votes: 4 2.3%

Red Tractor drops launch of green farming scheme amid anger from farmers

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As reported in Independent


quote: “Red Tractor has confirmed it is dropping plans to launch its green farming assurance standard in April“

read the TFF thread here: https://thefarmingforum.co.uk/index.php?threads/gfc-was-to-go-ahead-now-not-going-ahead.405234/
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