Is bagged fert a waste of time................... AND MONEY?

[Robw54]

Very good idea....till your neighbour keeps fertilising and cashes in with the shortage and you have nothing to sell!.

My feeling less grass will be grown this year or baled.

 

[Grassman]

My feeling less grass will be grown this year or baled.

I would guess so. If no market why grow it. I heard recently of someone offered 15 acres of meadow grass for next year for free. He turned it down.

 

[Sid]

Do you need the extra grass? You could spend the grand buying in. Forage stocks round us are plentiful due to a few good years and can be bought below COP. Of course one wet summer and a bad winter could change all that.

£10 a bale on Thursday at auction. No idea on quality.

 

[Philip Watkins]

£10 a bale on Thursday at auction. No idea on quality.

I was told round bale straw @ £15/bale at Tenbury on thursday.

 

[Henarar]

I grow as much as i use to. It just grows later and more evenly. When the clovers growing well and fixing N mid summer is awesome for growth.

As I said not knocking organic when done right

If you mow fields every year without fertiliser a gradual decline in yields will result.
You can miss an odd year but in general keep feeding it.

for so many years yes but then it will level off and I have proved this with a couple of fields that have been cut for hay every year for hay and have had nothing put on them for 30 years at least possibly 40, they seem to produce much the same every year the main thing that makes a difference is the weather

 

[Grassman]

As I said not knocking organic when done right

for so many years yes but then it will level off and I have proved this with a couple of fields that have been cut for hay every year for hay and have had nothing put on them for 30 years at least possibly 40, they seem to produce much the same every year the main thing that makes a difference is the weather

Yes I have quite a few old meadows like that. They have native grass that looks after itself.
Anything re seeded will not perform like this without feeding.

 

[M-J-G]

I am afraid that suddenly stopping N applications or missing a bit of a field is somewhat of a shock tactic, and is far from representative of how a sward will react to lower N applications in the long term, this is because there has not been time for the soil to adjust. So it is evidence of nothing really.

I stopped applying N to a field of PP that was last sown around the time of WWII, it was set stocked and used to get N 3x per year.

The first year it definately did less than the years before, but by year 3 down the line, it was back to carrying the same numbers as it was when it was getting bagged N. It had clover seed added and P&K were kept as close to optimum as possible. But the bagged N did turn out to be a waste of money.

I am not saying that N is a waste of time in all cases, on more productive grassland it can certainly be an economical choice, but not in every case!

 

[M-J-G]

As I said not knocking organic when done right

for so many years yes but then it will level off and I have proved this with a couple of fields that have been cut for hay every year for hay and have had nothing put on them for 30 years at least possibly 40, they seem to produce much the same every year the main thing that makes a difference is the weather

Two words, Organic Matter!

 

[Henarar]

Two words, Organic Matter!

one word, hay its no good for anything else, makes nice hay for the calves and the cows for that matter to pick at good herbage does them good IMHO

Edit, just to say this land gets nothing else on it no animals nothing apart from what the wildlife does

 

[Pasty]

There appear to be 2 schools of thought. Some say you can't keep taking without putting back. People like Dr. Ingham say this is not the case for many plants, including grasses, if the soil is in the right state and it's all working as it should.

It's clear that you can't grow row crops or wheat, year in and year out without putting the nutrients back in somehow. I can also see that high yielding grass mixes on fresh leys will respond to the correct dressing.

I suppose my original question was whether it was worth putting bagged fert on my old pastures. There are many thousands of acres of similar land around here and every year you'll hear the familiar sound of the spinner as they hammer round. I just wonder if they really get a pay-back or whether it's just what you do. I just can't get my head around the idea of laying out a grand on little white beads that will probably only help my thistles grow and hinder the clover.

 

[milkloss]

There appear to be 2 schools of thought. Some say you can't keep taking without putting back. People like Dr. Ingham say this is not the case for many plants, including grasses, if the soil is in the right state and it's all working as it should.

It's clear that you can't grow row crops or wheat, year in and year out without putting the nutrients back in somehow. I can also see that high yielding grass mixes on fresh leys will respond to the correct dressing.

I suppose my original question was whether it was worth putting bagged fert on my old pastures. There are many thousands of acres of similar land around here and every year you'll hear the familiar sound of the spinner as they hammer round. I just wonder if they really get a pay-back or whether it's just what you do. I just can't get my head around the idea of laying out a grand on little white beads that will probably only help my thistles grow and hinder the clover.

You may well be right but a modest amount of N won't hinder the clover and it will need P and K at good levels to do well.

 

[wdah/him]

As I said not knocking organic when done right

for so many years yes but then it will level off and I have proved this with a couple of fields that have been cut for hay every year for hay and have had nothing put on them for 30 years at least possibly 40, they seem to produce much the same every year the main thing that makes a difference is the weather

we have ground taken like that and the field over the hedge has been improved, it looks miles ahead but when u actually look at it closer it has a mighty crop of dicks and no where near as dry. our ground gets a bag of 2766 or simialr to the acre late spring , sometimes slurry early but normally slurry is reserved toa a crop is cut of it, cows love the silage or haylaedge made from it but i doubt is has any real feeding value.

i sprayed the rushes in it and they havent come back, dont know the ph of it but it has a sloe like a carpet

 

[Who2]

With the cost of land and the tight margins in agriculture should we not be pushing our farms to the optimum. N use works extremely well on paddock systems, set stocking is more suited to lower amounts of n with more use of compounds. I've tried a few different things on the farm here over the years and definitely get great results with early light coats of urea on grassland. With the weather as Is I'm hoping to get a light coat out on ground here that hasn't got slurry yet over the next few weeks.

 

[wdah/him]

weather u own or rent the land has a big bearing on how u farm it

 

[Who2]

weather u own or rent the land has a big bearing on how u farm it

I don't think it should, I both own and rent and all the ground has an opportunity cost. Even if your not making money off it. You could be making the rental price.

 

[wdah/him]

it has but only if someone wants it and many farm as a hobby now in different parts of the country as they are not big enough to have any power over the markets they sell into or buy out of.

if setting the land and some one makes a mess of it the rent will be small change in the time it takes to correct it

 

[Who2]

B

it has but only if someone wants it and many farm as a hobby now in different parts of the country as they are not big enough to have any power over the markets they sell into or buy out of.

if setting the land and some one makes a mess of it the rent will be small change in the time it takes to correct it

but if fertiliser isn't being applied then it's going to cost a fair bit to build it back up again anyway. Even if cost neutral at worst case scenario wouldn't it be nice as a hobby to have the fields right and growing to their optimum.

 

[wdah/him]

i have found that it doesnt take much N to keep ground right and with regular soil sampling to keep P and K right fert use can be low enough when slurry and fym and paddock systems used here. we own about 40 acres and rent about 100 and a use of a further 75 acres of bog/heather. use about 4 ton of fert and carry 60 cows and calves. abbuse no ground pay low rent and turn land away each year. so really for use more land suits us better than being stocked to hilt and in a wet year doing damge to ground and possibly having to house them. same in a poor growing year there will always be a bit somewhere for them.

i find with a bit more land u have more options

 

[glensman]

we have ground taken like that and the field over the hedge has been improved, it looks miles ahead but when u actually look at it closer it has a mighty crop of dicks and no where near as dry. our ground gets a bag of 2766 or simialr to the acre late spring , sometimes slurry early but normally slurry is reserved toa a crop is cut of it, cows love the silage or haylaedge made from it but i doubt is has any real feeding value.

i sprayed the rushes in it and they havent come back, dont know the ph of it but it has a sloe like a carpet

it has a mighty crop of dicks and no where near as dry.

what kind of plant is that?!

 

[Pasty]

Dick plant.