Fertliser spend per year

[melted welly]

good morning. I'm putting together a presentation for dealers and open evening talks i do. I try to us facts rather then my opinion. Its been 20 years since i was a farm manager. Can you tell me what your fertliser spend per HA is? feel free to pm if you want.
Kind regards
RobT

Can you access the ahdb benchmark reports? You’d be able to look at averages for different regions as well as Uk average spends.

 

[homefarm]

The way I look at it is with auto section 100% of the field gets 100kg when I say I want 100 kg/ha.
Without section/ auto on off 90% gets less around 95kg/ha and 10% gets 190kg/ha

The value of this accuracy is far greater than the potential 5% fertilizer cost saving which I have not got because I still put 100kgs on not the 95kgs most received before.

 

[Bobthebuilder]

Hold on till i add it all up
it might make you run to the hills mind !!

yours will be nowhere near ours, and ours will be nowhere near james dysons

 

[Bobthebuilder]

Theoretically I budget on 220kg N/Ha on wheats, 170kg on barley and 1st wheats after beans...

Lets say a 34.5% N product like Nitram is £230/t, 220Kg N / 0.345 equates to 637kg Nitram/Ha

£230/1000kg = 23p/kg of Nitram
637kg x 0.23p = £146.50/Ha £156/Ha if your Nitram was £245/tonne

Obviously its a bit more complex as some of the N will come from a N+S product and there is P+K fertiliser with rates that varies massively depending on soil type and farm history.

Its all well and good saving 5% fertiliser by using a more accurate machine but I am not sure I know what the optimum rate actually might have been until after the crop is harvested and sold... If wheat sells at £200/t the extra yield from 20% more N may more than cover the extra cost but if wheat ends up being sold for £100/t the optimum N rate was probably 20% less!

we'll put that on in 1 dose

 

[jh.]

Roughly how much difference in price is there between a top spec and basic fertiliser spreader?

Last year I bought a basic vicon roxl , hyd shutoff for each side , border kit. A weight cell machine was going to put it up another 5 grand. Never priced any higher spec than that

 

[Farmer_Joe]

depends. nearly £80 / ton difference between this year, and last.

how mcuh is it last time i got some was around 200 is per tonne for straight nitrogen, i use f**k all so 6 tonne last 2 years!

 

[Lincsman]

I half agree with you. When you go to auto section control, your fields shrink by 6-7%. Ask anyone with autosection control on a sprayer. You have to trust the tech and to accurately measure your fields.

Auto section will help without doubt, (very different to weigh cell) its just how many acres is it before the extra cost of the spreader is recouped?

 

[Hard Graft]

Well just done this year figure and £120/ha approx for chemical fertiliser cost across the cereals as only use one lorry load get a contractor to spread it but going away from this to liquid to better use the sp sprayer

 

[eagleye]

177/ha average on w cereals N+S and K, muck spread every 2 years suppliers P and K

 

[quattro]

Yes section control and weigh cells will save you fert. I want accurate on farm prices to be as fair as possible.

How many sections does a sulky have?

 

[farmerm]

we'll put that on in 1 dose

No you don't. Your wheat would be as flat as a pancake by mid June. Your local river and your bank balance would not stand for it either!

 

[Farma Parma]

I very much doubt BTB puts much more fert on than me & he knows that.
Maybes an extra late N top up on some cereals but am at the max rate near enuff as it is according to RB209 & NVZ regs which some of this place is under.

 

[ridger]

Its not really a saving, you just haven't put it on, if it had gone on its possible in the right season the crop would have yielded more or had more P in the grain, more than offsetting the cost.

My old spreader is worth about £500, and never let's me down, why would I spend maybe £10000+ to do the same job?

 

[Tealo]

Last year I bought a basic vicon roxl , hyd shutoff for each side , border kit. A weight cell machine was going to put it up another 5 grand. Never priced any higher spec than that

Interesting, so I guess all the flutes and whistles would be twice that. You would have to be doing a fair bit of tonnage to financially justify it before it becomes rotton or becomes unreliable, but boys love toys.

 

[Steevo]

I half agree with you. When you go to auto section control, your fields shrink by 6-7%. Ask anyone with autosection control on a sprayer. You have to trust the tech and to accurately measure your fields.

True.

The farmer then has the choice. Either reduce to new acreage, or call it 110kg/ha where previously he’d call it 100kg/ha.

What the actual figure is matters little. It’s the results that the application has that is what makes the difference.

In years gone by it was “I use notch 3” - whether that was 110kg or 100kg they never really knew. But it got the yield/protein they were looking for.

 

[jd6420s]

I would have thought that spending time getting the spread pattern as accurate as possible would be more beneficial than getting the amount applied absolutely correct. If I apply 10 kg too little on the first pass I usually put 10kg extra on the second. If I haven't adjusted the vanes correctly it not only looks bad but I can't correct it later and I know about it come harvest time.

 

[Bobthebuilder]

No you don't. Your wheat would be as flat as a pancake by mid June. Your local river and your bank balance would not stand for it either!

1st dose will be 125kg N&S, 2nd dose will be between 185/200kg N and a 3rd dose will be somewhere between 100/150kg depending on crop

 

[Bobthebuilder]

I very much doubt BTB puts much more fert on than me & he knows that.
Maybes an extra late N top up on some cereals but am at the max rate near enuff as it is according to RB209 & NVZ regs which some of this place is under.

You must put more on nowadays than you used to as we certainly used to put more on than you

 

[SilliamWhale]

I get a contractor in to do mine - all bells and whistles machine. Probably costs me £7 acre per year generally.

I could do it myself with a cheaper machine but I think the gain in accuracy and the fact you get an extra man and machine makes it well worth it

 

[Bobthebuilder]

I don’t have paperwork to hand but once we start it’s feels like it’s every 3 weeks we’re back through again with another dose