- Location
- Ceredigion
Are those delivered prices . None of them look much cop
The screened stuff is rubbish. The stuff marked at £30 looks ok
The screened stuff is rubbish. The stuff marked at £30 looks ok
Which is best, lime dust or lime granules
- Thread starter Geoffreywrc
- Start date
unfortunately not delivered, all ex works, but that’s basically the choice, there’s over 100miles of haulage to add on that!
- Location
- Ceredigion
I'm hauling mine 150 miles . Its better lime and delivered price is less that that collected price . I'm sure you could haul lime out of Buxton and get it cheaper than that
Worth mentioning too that the ‘flour’ is a milled and dried product, so you wouldn’t be paying to haul water, it’s not normally sold for liming but rather goes off for further processing, some of it ends up in some of the Origin fertilisers I think I was told once.
Buxton is over 450 miles!
- Location
- Ceredigion
Its 250 miles to me . Was quoted around £30/ton delivered for lime as fine as flour
I would sooner pay double for that that that screened lime on your sheets
But let's see what the experts say
Cab-over Pete
Member
- Location
- Kenilworth, Warwickshire
I’m no expert at all, but if you’re going to lug anything that far you might as well bring the best quality you can. Haulage can often make it break the cost and, as I said earlier, if you’re right on the doorstep of a coarse but very cheap source of lime then it can make economic sense to use it.
With both at an NV of 52% it’s just a case of choosing the sample with the most fines in it, which is easy to see.
Maybe the granulated lime could work for you if it’s got to come so far. That will depend on your starting pH, what you want to get to and what you want to grow.
With both at an NV of 52% it’s just a case of choosing the sample with the most fines in it, which is easy to see.
Maybe the granulated lime could work for you if it’s got to come so far. That will depend on your starting pH, what you want to get to and what you want to grow.
I have recently sampled ag lime at 32 locations around Ireland for the quality assurance trademark known as Grolime. There is a very high compliance rate with all sources generally achieving a TNV of above 95%. The grading can prove troublesome for some at times, particularly the 150 micron sieve limit but failures are generally marginal. The problem is usually the wear on hammer mills. One quarry operator was informing me that when a new set of hammers are inserted he can expect about 50% max passing the 150 micron sieve for about a weeks production. This then drops by about 5% every week of production so that gives him about a month of compliance operating flat out before hammers in the mill would have to be turned or changed. I think only for the assurance scheme which requires bi-annual independent sampling and testing, a lot of folk may neglect to keep on top of hammer mill maintenance and therefore lime grading would be questionable
It’s for permanent grassland, needing 2-3t/ac, would like to hit 6.3 one day, it’ll mostly be 5.4-5.8.
You’d think the cost of haulage would have come down a bit with the diesel price drop, maybe it’s worth looking further afield.
Maybe we could make a list of suppliers/prices/quality?
It's the tax that is the killer , ag limestone is worthless except to farmers .
- Location
- Ceredigion
I thought agg lime was exempt from tax
Cab-over Pete
Member
- Location
- Kenilworth, Warwickshire
Cab-over Pete
Member
- Location
- Kenilworth, Warwickshire
5.4 up to 6.3 should be quite easily achievable with 2t/ac of good quality ground lime
Chae1
Member
- Location
- Aberdeenshire
We use Parkmore lime. It works. Must be one of the 2 that can be trusted!
I was speaking to one of my friends who drives a lorry hauling aggregate for breedon. He said parkmore were into lime with a higher NV and thought they could charge more. How many farmers would buy lower nv lime for a few £ less? Most I suspect. Another one is how many adjust the application rate, taking into account higher NV?
ollie989898
Member
I always reckoned 0.5 pH per tonne as a very rough rule of thumb. I don't recall ever doing more than 2 tonne at a time though but I have no doubt a farmer somewhere has tried it, probably with a dung spreader.
Yeah I had 100t Parkmore lime a couple of years ago and it went out at just under 1.5t/ac, it made a noticeable difference, the idea was to do the same again the year after but it hasn’t happened yet. Had a load of the coarse stuff out of torlundy, same colour but noticeably more grit in it as expected. Would really like to know if the flour would be worth the extra expense tho, I suppose you’d need to have them lab analysed to really know.
I’ve been told that the coarser stuff would ‘last longer’, but I’m not convinced, I’m assuming the limestone is quite hard, and anything over 1mm is basically inert, I’d love to take a couple of loads of the flour but I’d be looking at £50/t+, it’s a lot of money, but then maybe 1t/ac would do more good than 3t of the coarse stuff!?
I’ve been thinking, and it’s getting late so may be nonsense, but if you class sub 0.150mm as the active part:
Torlundy coarse is £13/213kg of fines, so £61/t of fines.
Parkmore is £19/360kg of fines, so £52.70/t of active stuff.
This makes it look likes no brainer. I wish the torlundy flour had a 0.150mm %, it would be interesting then.
Cab-over Pete
Member
- Location
- Kenilworth, Warwickshire
That’s a good way of looking at it. But there will be plenty more of the sample that’s good stuff too. You really need to see a sample I think.
I know that’s completely unscientific, but you can’t beat actually seeing what you’re buying.
I know that’s completely unscientific, but you can’t beat actually seeing what you’re buying.
- Location
- Ceredigion
My thinking is totally unscientific. But very fine lime works quick but you have to spread more often as it disappears quicker. Leeches out I expect . So if you dont want to spread to often a slightly course lime works better. This is where it gets interesting. As I think some limes work better that others of the same coursnes, having said that I would not buy screened lime
Cab-over Pete
Member
- Location
- Kenilworth, Warwickshire
That’s absolutely correct. It’s the word “slightly” that is the crucial bit.