I'll tell you one thing.... Muck is for me a good investment, pensions a massive con.
The £ value of fym
- Thread starter Joe Boy
- Start date
glasshouse
Member
- Location
- lothians
i think your composting and spreading will cost you a lot more.
You're missing something here. Importing nutrients. Crop offtake of phosphate & potash can be £60/ha if baling the straw.
Cover crops will improve SOM (that will be lost when the field is cultivated, but that's another issue). Muck has the organic matter and biology and nutrients. As long as you're not importing weeds too then manures can be better then CCs depending on the volume of what you add.
For spreading field heaps £2 - 2.50/t covers a contractor doing it IME. Cheaper if you do it yourself.
Composting? How long is a piece of string? A well depreciated old slew turning heaps occasionally will be cheap. Coughing up for a purpose built windrower on a concrete yard is £££.
Bossfarmer
Member
- Location
- between Perth and Inverness
I think it depends on the quality of the muck, if its from store or fattening cattle which have a lot of grain put through them the dung is bound to be much higher in nutrients than that of some dry cows only fed silage?
forge the NPK value of it - thats of little importance IMO vs the OM and what that will do for soil
I can get free muck, only cost is carting and spreading but i'm increasingly concerned that doing so might bring blackgrass onto the farm
spreading via contractor costs me £1.50/t and carting is of no real cost as its a job done by arable staff when they have nothing else to do, only direct extra cost is fuel
nothing improves soil faster though IME
if it was costing me anything like £100/ha i'm not sure I would be using it, green compost from a cover crop would be much cheaper for similar benefits
I can get free muck, only cost is carting and spreading but i'm increasingly concerned that doing so might bring blackgrass onto the farm
spreading via contractor costs me £1.50/t and carting is of no real cost as its a job done by arable staff when they have nothing else to do, only direct extra cost is fuel
nothing improves soil faster though IME
if it was costing me anything like £100/ha i'm not sure I would be using it, green compost from a cover crop would be much cheaper for similar benefits
How do you value organic matter? I've been asking that question for year & am yet to hear a satisfactory answer. We all know it's good but what is it worth spending on?
What do you get for £1.50/t? Your own loader and at least one of your own tractors on a spreader?
What do you get for £1.50/t? Your own loader and at least one of your own tractors on a spreader?
can't put a value on it really
£1.50/t gets it from pile on headland to spread - team of 4 or 5 spreaders come with a loading shovel
Bossfarmer
Member
- Location
- between Perth and Inverness
that gets expensive we bought an old second hand bunning an just do it all ourselves
think i would struggle to do the job for much less, however I have considered getting a spreader or hiring one in as trying to get contractors to minimise and control traffic is seemingly impossible and I'm not impressed with spread pattern we often see, can be a bit 'lumpy'
@12t/ha:
Total N=58kg/ha
Total P2O5=38kg/ha
Total K2O=78kg/ha
Total S03=26kg/ha
@12t/ha assuming applied in Autumn on heavy soil:
Available N=10% of total=6kgN/ha
Available P2O5=60% of total (If P index is 0 or 1) The other 40% will add to your soil reserves, so not lost.
Available P2O5=100% of total (If P index is 2 or above)
Available K20=90% of total (If K index is 0 or 1) The other 10% will add to your soil reserves, so not lost.
Not bothering to value sulphur as it's such a small amount. work on 10% available of the total, i.e. F All
Value of nutrients:
N=£3.12/ha=£0.22/tonne of FYM (valuing only 6kg N/ha)
P=£20.52/ha=£1.71/tonne of FYM*
K=£29.64/ha=£2.47/tonne of FYM*
*I've valued P and K on 100% availability, just be sure you manage the amounts available to the next crop correctly when at lower indices (0 &1).
Your FYM is worth £4.40 per tonne in N,P,K NUTRIENTS.
Value of the organic matter in terms of improving soil structure and better nutrient cycling because soil microbial population is stimulated by the organic matter; a recent study (DC Agri) found yields were increased by 6% when FYM was used as well as mineral fert to supply the crop requirement.
10t/ha WW crop could give another 600kg (0.6 tonnes) per Ha, so say that would roughly be £60 per Ha. Work that back to the manure and its giving £5.00 extra yield per tonne of FYM used.
Using the above that means you're FYM has a value of around £9.40 per tonne.
DC Agri information is here:
http://www.wrap.org.uk/sites/files/wrap/DC Agri - Bulletin 6 - Increased Yields.pdf
Look at Fig.6 on last page.
Seems like it is worth doing.
FINALLY (before I get on with some work) don't just look at one source of OM, if you can rotate different sources over time this will give a wider input of organic matter types. OM is not all the same, green waste compost differs to FYM which differs to cover crops which differs to biosolids. You are adding OM to soil to stimulate microbial activity and get the benefits of this activity. The greater the range of OM types you can supply a field with, the greater the range of microbes you will stimulate.
The greater range of soil microbes you have means that in changing soil conditions you are likely to have one species that that is able to positively contribute or do its job.
Everyone is getting hung up on one particular strategy i.e. CCs versus FYM etc. The strategy should be to do them all !! Obviously not all at once, but from year to year.
Total N=58kg/ha
Total P2O5=38kg/ha
Total K2O=78kg/ha
Total S03=26kg/ha
@12t/ha assuming applied in Autumn on heavy soil:
Available N=10% of total=6kgN/ha
Available P2O5=60% of total (If P index is 0 or 1) The other 40% will add to your soil reserves, so not lost.
Available P2O5=100% of total (If P index is 2 or above)
Available K20=90% of total (If K index is 0 or 1) The other 10% will add to your soil reserves, so not lost.
Not bothering to value sulphur as it's such a small amount. work on 10% available of the total, i.e. F All
Value of nutrients:
N=£3.12/ha=£0.22/tonne of FYM (valuing only 6kg N/ha)
P=£20.52/ha=£1.71/tonne of FYM*
K=£29.64/ha=£2.47/tonne of FYM*
*I've valued P and K on 100% availability, just be sure you manage the amounts available to the next crop correctly when at lower indices (0 &1).
Your FYM is worth £4.40 per tonne in N,P,K NUTRIENTS.
Value of the organic matter in terms of improving soil structure and better nutrient cycling because soil microbial population is stimulated by the organic matter; a recent study (DC Agri) found yields were increased by 6% when FYM was used as well as mineral fert to supply the crop requirement.
10t/ha WW crop could give another 600kg (0.6 tonnes) per Ha, so say that would roughly be £60 per Ha. Work that back to the manure and its giving £5.00 extra yield per tonne of FYM used.
Using the above that means you're FYM has a value of around £9.40 per tonne.
DC Agri information is here:
http://www.wrap.org.uk/sites/files/wrap/DC Agri - Bulletin 6 - Increased Yields.pdf
Look at Fig.6 on last page.
Seems like it is worth doing.
FINALLY (before I get on with some work) don't just look at one source of OM, if you can rotate different sources over time this will give a wider input of organic matter types. OM is not all the same, green waste compost differs to FYM which differs to cover crops which differs to biosolids. You are adding OM to soil to stimulate microbial activity and get the benefits of this activity. The greater the range of OM types you can supply a field with, the greater the range of microbes you will stimulate.
The greater range of soil microbes you have means that in changing soil conditions you are likely to have one species that that is able to positively contribute or do its job.
Everyone is getting hung up on one particular strategy i.e. CCs versus FYM etc. The strategy should be to do them all !! Obviously not all at once, but from year to year.
The value of organic matter is huge. Ultimately allowing OM to decline will eventually leave you with soil of little agricultural use. When I say you I mean your business and whoever is running it in 30, 50, 80 years time?
I don't think we will get to that extreme situation in the future because we're talking about it and working stuff through like this now. What do you think?
MNBVCXZ
Member
- Location
- Central Southern UK
There are already farms with issues associated with continual residue removal and little returned.
Also when comparing organic N with the value of bagged N don't forget bagged N is only 65% efficient so don't divide £/T by 345, it should be divided by 224.
Also when comparing organic N with the value of bagged N don't forget bagged N is only 65% efficient so don't divide £/T by 345, it should be divided by 224.
Some helpful points hear. Thanks.
I have just had a quote for fiberphos 0 12 12, £100 tonne delivered and spread. A tonne a ha would supply similar p k mg and s to my 20t composted muck so I'm not paying too much of a premium when you take the N in the muck into account.
Composting does not cost me much. Somethings I leave a bit of field Undrilled to do the composting on. This lost crop area is probably the biggest cost as I do the work myself and it is very quick and easy with an old windrow turner.
I have just had a quote for fiberphos 0 12 12, £100 tonne delivered and spread. A tonne a ha would supply similar p k mg and s to my 20t composted muck so I'm not paying too much of a premium when you take the N in the muck into account.
Composting does not cost me much. Somethings I leave a bit of field Undrilled to do the composting on. This lost crop area is probably the biggest cost as I do the work myself and it is very quick and easy with an old windrow turner.
Would be interested in seeing a picture of your old windrow turner if you have time.TIA.
I don't dispute that bag N is around 65% efficient but is organic 100% efficient after all of the previously mentioned allowances?
I agree. We're losing our solutions that come out of a bag or can - I see UK ag turning a full circle back to mixed farming with various forms of livestock. Not necessarily the types that our fathers & grandfathers had, but AD plants, algae production, green manures, recycled waste streams etc.
Soil organic matters have declined to their current low levels but the rate of decline is slowing. Stubble burning and ploughing are the worst IMO and no till and cover crops are the best, with manuring at the very top. Cultivation and crop removal reduces it. We're lucky in this country not to have as many extreme weather events as the Amazon basin or the Dust Bowl so our soil loss (not just depreciation/degradation) isn't as bad.
MNBVCXZ
Member
- Location
- Central Southern UK
When you calculate the value of N for the purposes of this exercise you have to put a value on bagged N!? When doing so it is incorrect to divide by 345 kg as you will only actually get 224 kg!
Otherwise you would be calculating the total N in the manure not the available!
Coximus
Member
On the subject of som - how is it best added to pasture ground? Will spreading muck add to it, does nature take it down into the soil or do I need to plough in 3 inches of muck into some heavy clay and reseed?
How long has it been pasture? Is it in rotation with arable, if yes what is the rotation etc?