Spreading gypsum on pasture
- Thread starter Macsky
- Start date
Cab-over Pete
Member
- Location
- Kenilworth, Warwickshire
I spread some on sheep ground back in spring.
You will need to be very confident of the purity of the product. You don’t want to be using recycled stuff that can be delivered with any and all types of rubbish included.
I don’t get involved with gypsum very often but each time I do it seems difficult to get hold of a quality product. And when I do, farmers seldom want to pay for it, preferring to buy a heap of something they know very little about.
You will need to be very confident of the purity of the product. You don’t want to be using recycled stuff that can be delivered with any and all types of rubbish included.
I don’t get involved with gypsum very often but each time I do it seems difficult to get hold of a quality product. And when I do, farmers seldom want to pay for it, preferring to buy a heap of something they know very little about.
Anyone else got any ideas on this? Ive spoken to a merchant today to see if they can source any out of curiosity, and at what price.
Idea is to increase calcium levels, they are low to very low, probably not helped by magnesium being high to very high, increase soil porosity/openness, and to provide some sulphur.
Idea is to increase calcium levels, they are low to very low, probably not helped by magnesium being high to very high, increase soil porosity/openness, and to provide some sulphur.
Put liquid gypsum on with a sprayer.
Any ideas on cost/application rates?
Are you on clay?
What about calcium carbonate lime?
No but not light
Have spread some already, just trying to find out if there’s any more benefits to gypsum
There's a sulphur benefit from gypsum, but that's relative to the application rate. Sulphur would only be available in the short term as it's leached out of the soil like nitrogen.
On a heavy clay with high magnesium the soil structure can be improved by adding gypsum, but if you aren't a heavy clay then this wouldn't apply.
If you are high magnesium due to natural circumstances make sure the soil pottassium (K) levels are kept at the optimum, otherwise the plant could take up magnesium where pottassium is lacking, and that leads to nutritional imbalance in the plant which knocks on to whatever livestock is feeding off it.
If you are next to the coast and have salt water flooding of your soil then there is a benefit to using gypsum as it can help reduce sodium.
I'm thinking that an optimum Ca:Mg ratio doesn't actually exist - after all there will be a wide spectrum in the different soil types and the work by Albrecht decades ago that proposed this theory has been found not to be correct, yet folk are still making money out of the outdated concept!
What's the soil pH?
- Location
- Near Colchester
I am pretty sure that you can't apply more than a ton an acre without a special licence, at this rate you will have some effect on pH and contribute some valuable sulphur to the growing crop (but S leaches out quickly) but won't have any effect worth bothering with on high mag soils and reflocculation of salt water damaged soils.
If the product is clean and the day is still (it is very finely ground) it is good stuff, not sure whether I would put it on land that was to be grazed soon though, my gut feeling says no.
If the product is clean and the day is still (it is very finely ground) it is good stuff, not sure whether I would put it on land that was to be grazed soon though, my gut feeling says no.
We've put 10 litres per hectare on grassland and 15 litres on grass before ploughing. Somebody will be along and say it's not enough but it makes a difference here particularly with working ground down. Agronomist suggested we try it as we had a compaction problem. Fields that have been treated now drain better
If you've got a compaction problem that's surely got to be down to management of traffic and stocking?
If you have heavy clay and high magnesium then there's likely to be a 'tight' soil structure because the magnesium is holding the clay particles together tightly..... I suppose you could call that compaction.
Dig a hole carefully and ask the agronomist to show you where the compaction is....... it may be that a careful subsoiling in the summer will rectify the problem........ obviouslyit's hard to say without being 'on the ground'.
If it's waste gypsum I think the rate is 1t/ha if you just want to spread it as a 'low risk' waste. If it's waste gypsum and you want to spread more than that then the supplier will need to apply (deployment) to the EA in England, and I'm guessing similar with SEPA in Scotland - so it all gets very expensive.
You can get 'Agricultural Gypsum' which isn't waste and that comes from British Gypsum....or one of the companies they supply......
Get what your saying, ground is relatively high in magnesium and the gypsum helps. On the subsoiling side of things I've only got small kit so would need a contractor in and my thinking is I'd rather pay them to do 4 or 5 passes with a sprayer at a good speed rather than up and down at whatever width the subsoiler is at a slower speed. Also when burning of grass to plough gypsum goes in the tank with whatever is used so technically no application cost for gypsum. It's horses for courses and everybody needs to do what suits them
Depends where the compacted layer is as to what the correction should be.
If you are heavy clay with high Mag then it's likely the tight soil structure is due to this, but if you don't have those two things then compaction is likely to be down to another cause........ or it could be a combination of that and other management.
YELROM
Member
- Location
- North Yorkshire
At what index level is Mag classed as high.
We have some clay soils that are quite tight and sit in water in winter that are indexes 4’s to 5’s, on standard ph,p,k mag tests
Yes, index 4 and 5 is high.
We bought 5 x 25kg bags of agricultural gypsum and spread at 500g/sq meter by hand over a small test area to see if it has an effect. Think the rate was equvalent to 5t /ha.....
Currently just keeping an eye on that area and comparing to rest of the untreated land around the spread area....... we'll dig a few spades of soil out in the spring and compare structure too. Obviously we'll benefit from the sulphur in the gypsum, so we won't just go off how the crop looks, we'll have to get into the soil and look.
Here's link on eBay, there are other sellers. Obviously buying hundreds of bags isn't cheap, so after the small scale test IF more is needed it is possible to buy bulker loads of the same stuff.... which reduces cost significantly. This eBay listing if £115 for the five bags......
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/401748308538?_trkparms=amclksrc=ITM&aid=1110006&algo=HOMESPLICE.SIM&ao=1&asc=20200818143230&meid=18ee9e97f74f44998d44f3970951f0bc&pid=101224&rk=1&rkt=5&sd=143216129633&itm=401748308538&pmt=1&noa=0&pg=2047675&algv=DefaultOrganicWeb&_trksid=p2047675.c101224.m-1&amdata=cksum:40174830853818ee9e97f74f44998d44f3970951f0bc|enc:AQAHAAAA8Hfu33UHQ7b5PJ8ZY%2FcxAQC54iHLWkdylF%2Bf8QqkQtlhLrbSf8d16S4QWxh7FGnYLGUQASa52L7A4cREXfAsQbJJHB6x3A9S0wANlOV7%2B5Y6POExGPCPakOII2R4f4JxxvQNi4FPqinjUYEN%2B9tP9Enf1Db3QQF3I0dYVrRR1aXEM0tsakEh6bXHgGnQQoDsFUAwoR95pA2Wg%2BSksS8Fr0Fdb6JCF0vwJxLL%2BmhG3RbkhboV8B704CEOhD6VkE2RSwfWAeptLErjEBJTYC9CDOvZt8nO%2BtKE3Zt5X5iOx90ts8SPsWVUFVva2QW8f%2FsuFQ%3D%3D|ampid
L_CLK|clp:2047675
- Location
- Near Colchester
We are all 5+ on the Soyl tests, I think that is as high as the test results go.