Lime spreading rates.

Treg

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Cornwall
We've been talking about reduced lime spreading rates on the Beef & Lamb price tracker & thought it deserves it's own thread.
@livestock 1
@Hilly
@Highland Mule
@Cab-over Pete
@Skintagain
@Kiwi Pete
@Poorbuthappy

Sorry if I've missed anyone who was in that conversation.
Just to catch up anyone looking in on this thread that has seen the conversation in the other thread, basically some posters were talking about lime applications, when I posted that alot of the spreading rates are to high at 1 ton / acre & is based on old (1950s ) science. Modern soil experts ( and many from the 1950s ) disagree with the recommended rates & suggest 10-15 kgs/ acre, the idea being a small rate stimulates the soil biology, whereas a large rate can damage soil biology and cause nutrients to go out of balance.
I take on board what @Cab-over Pete is saying about local area and agree it may not work everywhere.
I'm also surprised by some of the rates being applied by some in the other thread, was it 2t/ acre every few years? That says to me something is wrong but I'd love to be selling them lime ;)
The first question I'm going to ask is when do most of you soil test & why at that time?
 
I’m not going to state there’s nothing in what you’re saying and that on some soils it may not be necessary to apply much lime. I don’t know enough about soil biology (does anybody?) to know if 2t/ac is too much for it. But with approximately 2000t+ of top soil in an average acre of land I can’t see that putting A BIT too much lime on is going to cause any harm to anything except the farmers bank balance.

What I do know is, to produce commodity grain, high yielding roots and veg and quality forage, the most economical way to get good yields is to have a balanced pH within the natural healthy balance of nutrients in the soil. And the best and most cost effective way to do that is to add lime or chalk after a comprehensive soil sample of the varying soil types you may have.
On the flip side, adding way too much lime can be a bad thing too.

To my mind, soil sampling should be done when the soil is in its most natural state. Moist and friable with a growing or recently harvested crop. Done on the day of collection, not sitting in a plastic bag for days and certainly not done in a lab where any particles of natural stone, brick, tile, concrete or even lime from previous applications will be ground up into a powder thus affecting the pH result.

No faffing about with expensive but unreliable electronic pH meters. Use the tried, tested and trusted method with test tubes and reliably sourced testing ingredients (for want of a better word).

But most importantly, done by someone you can trust to collect samples properly, keep soil types separate, use method and routine during testing and produce an honest recommendation for lime use. Then supply you with the best quality lime available to spread.

If you can’t find anyone in your area to do that then you’re probably not going to get the most from cost effective pH correction.
 

Henarar

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Somerset
We've been talking about reduced lime spreading rates on the Beef & Lamb price tracker & thought it deserves it's own thread.
@livestock 1
@Hilly
@Highland Mule
@Cab-over Pete
@Skintagain
@Kiwi Pete
@Poorbuthappy

Sorry if I've missed anyone who was in that conversation.
Just to catch up anyone looking in on this thread that has seen the conversation in the other thread, basically some posters were talking about lime applications, when I posted that alot of the spreading rates are to high at 1 ton / acre & is based on old (1950s ) science. Modern soil experts ( and many from the 1950s ) disagree with the recommended rates & suggest 10-15 kgs/ acre, the idea being a small rate stimulates the soil biology, whereas a large rate can damage soil biology and cause nutrients to go out of balance.
I take on board what @Cab-over Pete is saying about local area and agree it may not work everywhere.
I'm also surprised by some of the rates being applied by some in the other thread, was it 2t/ acre every few years? That says to me something is wrong but I'd love to be selling them lime ;)
The first question I'm going to ask is when do most of you soil test & why at that time?
Some places growing corn on the quantock hills we would put 2 ton per acre every 3 or 4 years, that was ground limestone 55% NV
 

Macsky

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Highland
We've been talking about reduced lime spreading rates on the Beef & Lamb price tracker & thought it deserves it's own thread.
@livestock 1
@Hilly
@Highland Mule
@Cab-over Pete
@Skintagain
@Kiwi Pete
@Poorbuthappy

Sorry if I've missed anyone who was in that conversation.
Just to catch up anyone looking in on this thread that has seen the conversation in the other thread, basically some posters were talking about lime applications, when I posted that alot of the spreading rates are to high at 1 ton / acre & is based on old (1950s ) science. Modern soil experts ( and many from the 1950s ) disagree with the recommended rates & suggest 10-15 kgs/ acre, the idea being a small rate stimulates the soil biology, whereas a large rate can damage soil biology and cause nutrients to go out of balance.
I take on board what @Cab-over Pete is saying about local area and agree it may not work everywhere.
I'm also surprised by some of the rates being applied by some in the other thread, was it 2t/ acre every few years? That says to me something is wrong but I'd love to be selling them lime ;)
The first question I'm going to ask is when do most of you soil test & why at that time?
Anything less than 2t/ac here is a waste of time, 10kg/ac would be some cost in time and diesel spreading it for absolutely no benefit whatsoever.
 

Henarar

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Somerset
Just to catch up anyone looking in on this thread that has seen the conversation in the other thread, basically some posters were talking about lime applications, when I posted that alot of the spreading rates are to high at 1 ton / acre & is based on old (1950s ) science. Modern soil experts ( and many from the 1950s ) disagree with the recommended rates & suggest 10-15 kgs/ acre, the idea being a small rate stimulates the soil biology, whereas a large rate can damage soil biology and cause nutrients to go out of balance.
@Treg
I am not going to dismiss what you are saying for one moment, I would think the important thing is that the soil biology has to be working correctly in the first place in order for this to work
 

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