Contaminated land with liquid AS

Lothian

Member
BASE UK Member
Location
Sunny Scotland
Be interested to see if there is any merit in this as we are thinking about using AS as part of a liquid N mix. No smoke without fire...

I wonder if it is possibly the sulphur element that is causing any issues as people may be applying it purely for nitrogen and getting 3 X as much sulphur as nitrogen? Could potentially acidify the ground much more quickly?
 

Exfarmer

Member
Location
Bury St Edmunds
Be interested to see if there is any merit in this as we are thinking about using AS as part of a liquid N mix. No smoke without fire...

I wonder if it is possibly the sulphur element that is causing any issues as people may be applying it purely for nitrogen and getting 3 X as much sulphur as nitrogen? Could potentially acidify the ground much more quickly?
I believe an awful lot of this product used to go into such mixes giving the blender a a very cheap base into which they had to top up with urea /AN to get to the required density
I have used it neat in an attempt to prevent capping which the sulphur could help by acidifying the surface. You had to apply something like 800-1000 litres per hectare ( or possibly per acre,) we did not notice any difference.
I understood that if you were local to the plant producing this product you could indeed use this low density product was a very cheap source of fertiliser but had to be careful as it was so acid.
I suspect their overuse could lead to big problems but expect a good dollop off lime would cure most issues as Sulphur is very mobile in most soils I believe.
 

Exfarmer

Member
Location
Bury St Edmunds
There was a farmer conned into applying liquid fertiliser mixture, it was basically pharmaceutical waste mixed in with it and made his cows infertile etc.
.they'll be looking for other victims of this gang.
I would have been very surprised if a large manufacturer would have allowed any such product to be dumped in such a way, but I could be wrong.
I would think this is more about over acidification of soils causing any number of mineral lock ups
 
He organised for a chemical analysis to be carried out on soil, grass and silage samples and at the time had expected they would find urea and a couple of other components which could have been put down to a ‘mix gone wrong’ but instead he said their ‘worst fears were confirmed’.

“The analysis revealed traces of petrochemicals, plastic bottle compounds, birth control pills, clothing, paint stripper, pesticides, herbicides, anti-cancer treatments, brake fluid, hair conditioner, plus many more shocking findings.

“It became clear that all sorts of material had been tipped in a lagoon and there was no real documentation of what has been going in. We even found a drug for epilepsy which is only used with kids – this suggested that possible waste from hospitals had been included

 

SFI - What % were you taking out of production?

  • 0 %

    Votes: 79 42.0%
  • Up to 25%

    Votes: 66 35.1%
  • 25-50%

    Votes: 30 16.0%
  • 50-75%

    Votes: 3 1.6%
  • 75-100%

    Votes: 3 1.6%
  • 100% I’ve had enough of farming!

    Votes: 7 3.7%

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

  • 1,291
  • 1
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/
Top