Fertiliser Price Tracker

lloyd

Member
Location
Herefordshire
No one I know has secured all their requirements, some have had none and have no intention of buying at current prices.
Quite a few, my self included have bought enough for early season requirements and will see how things go from there, most livestock farmers seem to have got a reasonable carry over of forage so are hoping to get away with using less.
My guess would be fertiliser sales will be down between 10 and 30 percent for the year with the biggest reductions in the livestock sector
How will you be able to reduce your own fertiliser requirements ?
Better use of slurry?
 
How will you be able to reduce your own fertiliser requirements ?
Better use of slurry?
No, the better use of slurry line is false hope in my opinion unless you’ve been completely reckless in its use previously.
I have never liked running short of forage so have a good carryover, more so as I bought some extra land (10% of my area) which went into maize last year but haven’t increased my stocking.
Made about 50 ton of hay last year but haven’t used 5 as yet as well as probably another 10 somewhere in the back of the shed buried behind some straw.
Have only within the last month started using last years straw, had a carryover from the two previous years and will have an even bigger carry over this year as I ended up buying two fields last year when I only really wanted one, but it was close by and the price although not cheap was well below some of the silly prices, it may well look even cheaper by next year.
I’m more short if shed room for storage than forage.
So quite a bit of fat on my back to withstand a lean time, they always used to say hay in the barn is better than money in the bank.
 

Cropper

Member
Location
N. Glos
A lot who survived the 1930’s told me the best way to survive was to do nothing. My great grandfather was paid to keep the neighbouring estate fallow.
We aren’t really in that state now. I appreciate grain prices going forward might justify higher fertiliser prices but it’s quite a risk.
Sell grain forward to possibly lock in a small profit but what if you have a tonnage shortfall at harvest? Buying in grain at an even higher price to make up a contract would finish me financially, so I’m unwilling too do that as a drought here affects our light land badly.
So I will wait and see.
The thought of ££24000 for a wagon load this year when it was £8000 for a wagon load last year is just too much for me to stomach particularly as grain hasn’t risen proportionally and I’ve no idea what the price of grain will be next harvest and won’t risk forward sales.

The fertiliser manufacturing monopoly in this country have got their sums wrong haven’t they?

They assumed we needed to buy x tonnes for this years production and given the price of wheat wouldn’t resist paying £1000+/t to get it.

Some have jumped in with both feet and even bought next year’s requirements but the cautious will have only bought a proportion of their needs and in the case of more extensive livestock bought none at all.

The bosses of the fertiliser monopoly sensing the price resistance at £1000/t have dropped £200/t. They know the season of use is coming close to the end and don’t want unsold product. As usual they will be trying to create the illusion of a shortage by matching supply and demand. Did the price drop coincide with the decision to allow the use of urea to continue by any chance? Funny that isn’t it?

Oil and gas prices are very volatile at the moment, but I have a feeling that AN price for new season should be under £700/t. At that price it is still cost effective to use at 75-90% of normal rates. Per ha, the difference between fertiliser(AN) at 80p/kg N(£275/t) and £2.00/kg N(£690/t) is £228 or £27/t for an 8.5t/ha crop. I know that all the other costs are also rising but growing wheat will still be producing a reasonable margin to cover the unavoidable farm overheads. By growing nothing what do you pay the overheads with?
 
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That one isn’t Yara it’s For Farmers but it’s the same sort of principle
Interestingly Bocm did test some freshly cut grass of ours and the results were it contained far too much N and the grass hadn’t time to take it up basically I had put too much on. Makes you think about these things now it has got to the price it has. Previous system was to put more than enough on to insure there’s a crop there but that is going to change here now.
 

Oilseed

Member
Location
North Cambs
When deciding how much Nitrogen to apply:

Soil reserves could be 0 - 100 kg/ha in the same field.

The amount the plant actually takes up could be 40 - 80 % of that applied.

The optimum rate on the Nitrogen response curve could easily vary by 75 kg/ha depending on the weather in the growing season and the price you sell your grain for in a years time.

If your spreading it to within 15% accuracy you are doing reasonably well.

Its all a bit of a lottery really!
 
At that price it is still cost effective at 100%.
But what if the weather produces an extra million tonnes of uk grain plus top yields in the USA Australia and the eu

the uk would then be on a export price 250 would at best or 200

the economic optimum for £2 a kg n and 20p per kg of wheat is nearer 180 kg of n than 240 kg of n

in a lot of fields if the crop does not use all the nitrogen and left bare till mid October or the spring the surplus n ends up in the river of below root depth on free draining land
cover crops or September planted crops will utilise and save the n
 

SFI - What % were you taking out of production?

  • 0 %

    Votes: 80 42.3%
  • Up to 25%

    Votes: 66 34.9%
  • 25-50%

    Votes: 30 15.9%
  • 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

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  • 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/
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