Financial value of FYM

Farmer Fin

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Aberdeenshire
Had anyone worked out a financial value to cattle FYM in terms of N, P and K? I realise there are other benefit to soil structure and health. Trying to work out the value as currently don’t use any.
 
Had anyone worked out a financial value to cattle FYM in terms of N, P and K? I realise there are other benefit to soil structure and health. Trying to work out the value as currently don’t use any.
Huge variation between FYM from our suckler cow shed and the potent stuff from the fattening shed . All good stuff though and our ground responds to application of either.
 

Chae1

Member
Location
Aberdeenshire
Who sells it? Folk who dont have enough land? Just a fattening shed or what?

I have a cutting from a paper with the £ value of fym in my office
Its a large scale cattle finisher. Doesn't have enough land.

As for worth,i normally count a 25t/ha application as 10 units of N, we have to be careful not to put too much N on for low n malting barley. Its obviously got a lot more counting trace elements and p&k. I don't believe the rb209 figures for available p&k that my glgm program shows for tons of muck applied.
 

Farmer Fin

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Aberdeenshire
Its a large scale cattle finisher. Doesn't have enough land.

As for worth,i normally count a 25t/ha application as 10 units of N, we have to be careful not to put too much N on for low n malting barley. Its obviously got a lot more counting trace elements and p&k. I don't believe the rb209 figures for available p&k that my glgm program shows for tons of muck applied.

Get confused with units how many kgs N? Book value is 6kg per tonne of which 10% available. 0.6kg per tonne at 25 tonne is 15kg N? Is that what you do for your NVZ? Assuming you are in an NVZ.
 

Chae1

Member
Location
Aberdeenshire
I shouldn't use units. But always been way ive been told by farmers to apply it.

By applying 125kg/ha of 30N your giving it 30 units.

So applying 10 units is same as applying 42kg/ha of 30N.

Im not in a nvz.
 

phil the cat

Member
Mixed Farmer
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They are my workings for what they’re worth! Really it depends what’s available locally and what your land is short of. I’d say FYM is good for land short in K.
 

Farmer Fin

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Aberdeenshire
We tend to go for Sewrage cake or chicken muck before OSR or maize, and FYM or green waste with less available N before wheat or barley to prevent any laying of crop and make it easier for artificial N calculations.

Thanks. Do you take utilisation / availability into your equations on your spreadsheet? Still trying to work out how cost effective it is vs bagged.

We normally chop straw but neighbours would take straw for muck in return but we then have to spread it. Also means a lot of extra traffic on the field.
 

Flat 10

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Fen Edge
Had anyone worked out a financial value to cattle FYM in terms of N, P and K? I realise there are other benefit to soil structure and health. Trying to work out the value as currently don’t use any.
Look in RB209. Find out prices for TSP, MOP and AN and do it like that?! Varies from week to week as the prices change. Then take into account spreading costs. Your value won't be the same as mine which isn't the same as my neighbours etc etc
 

phil the cat

Member
Mixed Farmer
Thanks. Do you take utilisation / availability into your equations on your spreadsheet? Still trying to work out how cost effective it is vs bagged.

We normally chop straw but neighbours would take straw for muck in return but we then have to spread it. Also means a lot of extra traffic on the field.

The table is just a straight comparison spreading each muck to its NVZ limit. There is no factoring for utilisation. I’d priced the spreading on the chicken muck and Sewrage cake at contractor rate as our old vertical beater spreader doesn’t do a great job on it.

As for the compaction, true there is much more for baling/clearing/carting muck & spreading and all round the gates/muck pads.

We’ve been looking at a muck for straw too and while it’s not at any price, I think there are benefits that are difficult to quantify i.e moisture retention of soils in dry spells, workability and trace elements.
 

Spud

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
YO62
I've always thought slurry spread onto chopped straw would be a good idea, and less risk of importing blackgrass etc.

Everything baled here though, most of it put through the pigs and back out as muck.
Ottomh there is about 7kg/t each of p&k, so roughly 3 quid of k & £4.50 of P. N is negligible, but lots of trace elements.
I charge my pig enterprise straw at what I could sell it at, (this year £55/t ex field) and sell the arable the muck at £8/t.
From an arable perspective, I count the om/soil conditioning element as equivalent to the cost of spreading the muck.
Muck is one thing that does more than it says on the tin - benefits last more than one season and it provides more than it's nutritional value.
Also seen more benefit from not ploughing it down, in spuds and cereals.
 

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