Nitrogen replacement late in the day on growing crop

spikeislander

Member
Location
bedfordshire
Hi there this may belong in the holistic section but I’m not sure I do !
I’ve been tasked with cropping 200 acres in the coming years but with no man made nitrogen fertiliser , I’ll be exploring cover crops , catch crops , muck etc , although no digestate or compost due to plastics.
I’ve currently got 100 acres in elsewhere which I direct drilled ( with vaderstad ) but now had the no man made fert request dropped on me, is there any organic way I can get any n into the crop at this late stage ? I’m exploring slurry but not ideal, financially it’s not critical as the owners are willing to fund the trial, so my main question is
Will copious amounts of seaweed , and foliar biostimulants do much ? Bearing in mind it’s not supplementing normal fertiliser I wonder if the response would be ok as it’s all there is so early on the response curve?
thankks for help and any ideas would be very handy
 

spikeislander

Member
Location
bedfordshire
Yes I think that’s our first port of call , we’ve agreed that any shortfall over a traditional grown crop will be made up as I still had a years tenancy remaining but they wanted to start strategy straight away but I would like to try and close the gap a bit between the two systems and learn something ready for the next block and challenge.
Ps still got 936 and love it
 

glasshouse

Member
Location
lothians
Hi there this may belong in the holistic section but I’m not sure I do !
I’ve been tasked with cropping 200 acres in the coming years but with no man made nitrogen fertiliser , I’ll be exploring cover crops , catch crops , muck etc , although no digestate or compost due to plastics.
I’ve currently got 100 acres in elsewhere which I direct drilled ( with vaderstad ) but now had the no man made fert request dropped on me, is there any organic way I can get any n into the crop at this late stage ? I’m exploring slurry but not ideal, financially it’s not critical as the owners are willing to fund the trial, so my main question is
Will copious amounts of seaweed , and foliar biostimulants do much ? Bearing in mind it’s not supplementing normal fertiliser I wonder if the response would be ok as it’s all there is so early on the response curve?
thankks for help and any ideas would be very handy
Chicken sh!t
 

HarryB97

Member
Mixed Farmer
Sowing some small leaved white clover and letting it live in the bottom of the crop? Narrow rows of the Vaderstad may challenge it but this could also be a positive. With new muck rules sourcing chicken muck or slurry may be quite easy if there is the potential of a long term agreement between you and another party.
 

Cjm

Member
Location
Buckinghamshire
You’re a long way from the coast for the amount of seaweed you would need to make a difference! Any enthusiasm for livestock/grass in the rotation? Would the owner be willing to put in a lagoon for slurry/digestate?
 

Andrew K

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Essex
Would have thought cultivation system used would impact N release from soil. Need to stop weeds hogging up N too.
i think Clover co cropping might work? One for Andy Howard maybe?
 

Humble Village Farmer

Member
BASE UK Member
Location
Essex
Yes this is one of my calls , sadly it’s a bad tim e to be trying to source Nitrogen in any form!
No, it's a really good time because of how much money you will save!

Plantworks bacteria definitely worth a try.

What crops are you growing?

Have you considered "no kill farming" with a clover understorey? Clover will tolerate a medium dose of glyphosate so that might work. A bit late to try, but you could possibly undersow your wheat in the next few weeks. Ideally you would undersow a spring cereal.

Spring oats and beans can be grown together without fertiliser.

There's a definite school of thought that we have got our soils addicted to bagged n, so after the initial shock the microbes will fix a fair bit.
 

glasshouse

Member
Location
lothians
No, it's a really good time because of how much money you will save!

Plantworks bacteria definitely worth a try.

What crops are you growing?

Have you considered "no kill farming" with a clover understorey? Clover will tolerate a medium dose of glyphosate so that might work. A bit late to try, but you could possibly undersow your wheat in the next few weeks. Ideally you would undersow a spring cereal.

Spring oats and beans can be grown together without fertiliser.

There's a definite school of thought that we have got our soils addicted to bagged n, so after the initial shock the microbes will fix a fair bit.
Nonsense
None of that will work this year
It takes years to get the soil working again
Three yr grass ley heavily grazed then wheat, beans or peas, barley undersown
 

e3120

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
Northumberland
because we’ve been conditioned to believe that it’s needed by a circular system of breeding variety’s and poor soil management that’s created an environment that makes the plant reliant on artificial n
I actually agree with most of that but find that manures are the ideal antidote, whilst keeping the cash register busy.
 

SFI - What % were you taking out of production?

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Red Tractor drops launch of green farming scheme amid anger from farmers

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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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