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High fertiliser prices are likely to remain for the immediate future – prompting livestock producers to demand more from nutrients when managing grassland.

• High nutrient prices forecast to remain

• Manure offers good value for money

• Slurry spreading strategy important

High fertiliser prices are likely to remain for the immediate future – prompting livestock producers to demand more from nutrients when managing grassland.

“Many farms use organic manures extremely efficiently,” says Yara grassland agronomist Philip Cosgrave. “For others, there is scope to improve their utilisation and help mitigate rising fertiliser costs to an extent.” 

At today’s fertiliser prices, cattle slurry at 6% dry matter can be worth £5.76 per cubic metre (see table). This make it important for farmers to use it effectively, explains Mr Cosgrave.

It will be difficult to completely offset the increase in fertiliser costs, he adds. But making tweaks to existing systems where possible can help to save on fertiliser while maintaining the same level of output.

Producers should use recent soil test results when planning fertiliser requirements. Results will highlight where where organic manure can have the best effect – and help to reduce fertiliser requirements.

“If certain fields have high soil fertility while others have lower, its probably worthwhile to divert more slurry towards the latter,” says Mr Cosgrave. “It will work to reduce your mineral NPK fertiliser requirements.”

Farms producing lots of slurry can capture more of the nitrogen available to the crop by using low emission spreading equipment. This is because applying slurry using a splash plate means more ammonium-N will he lost as ammonia to the atmosphere.

Farmers should also maximise spring applied slurry applications for both silage and grazing, because spring weather conditions are less conducive for ammonia-N volatilisation compared to summer applications. 

“By switching some slurry from summer to spring you are increasing crop nitrogen availability by 0.26kg per cubic metre,” says Mr Cosgrave.

Slurry analysis

As well as testing soil, it can also pay to analyse the nutrient content of any organic fertilisers analysed – especially slurry. An accurate analysis is better than using standard book values from the RB209 fertiliser guide.

“Because this is an average value, a significant proportion of samples will have nitrogen levels above the book value – meaning there’s potential to scale back on fertiliser to balance crop requirements.”

UK ammonium nitrate prices are expected to remain stable to firm following an agreement between the government and manufacturers CF Industries on CO2 production, a by-product of nitrogen fertiliser manufacture.

Liquid UAN prices have moved higher in the UK ahead of spring top-up demand and to bring the market into line with UK ammonium nitrate prices, says Calum Findlay, head of fertiliser at ADM Agriculture.

Value of cattle slurry*

Available Nitrogen(N) £2.08

Available Phosphate(P) £1.43

Available Potash(K) £2.25

Total value £5.76

* Per cubic metre  at 6%DM, February 2022 

[source: Yara]