RWN News Digest |
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Fertiliser - A Sustainable Future |
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Failing to apply adequate fertiliser at the appropriate time to meet crop requirements can be extremely costly in lost yield of forage dry matter. It is often more expensive to take on more land or to purchase forage than it is to buy fertiliser even when the price is through the roof. Reduced forage yields resulting from the potential lack of fertiliser in the face of rising feed prices would be a disaster for most farm businessesOur advice is clear, high fertiliser prices are here to stay. Use fertiliser effectively. Re-seed when appropriate. New leys are far higher yielding and modern grasses have much better feed value than weed grasses. There is no point throwing expensive fertiliser at tired, old un-productive swards. Make full use of the new IGER Aber White Clovers wherever possible. MDC and IGER trials have clearly demonstrated that there is no yield penalty when grass only sward with 300 kg Nitrogen / ha are replaced with grass / Aber white clover swards with no Nitrogen fertiliser application. Getting the most out of your soilClovers can fix huge amounts of nitrogen when growing conditions are optimum. Ideally aim for 6.5 pH, 2.5 Potassium Index and 2.5 Phosphorous Index. Good drainage and soil aeration is extremely beneficial to clover growth as well as increasing grass growth, reducing nutrient loss, increasing organic matter reserves and earth worm numbers. Products such as Super Slag Basic, Super Slag Basic P K & S Blends And Gypsum provide an economic means of providing a wide range of nutrients to soils to benefit both plant growth and animal health Both products are very beneficial to clover again reducing reliance on expensive conventional fertiliser in a sustainable way. Where the above conditions for healthy soil biology are met the use of bio-fertilisers such as OrganicN and TwinN, to fix nitrogen and condition the soil can be very effective in reducing the need for heavy applications of artificial nitrogen fertilisers. A recently introduced products to treat slurry are rapidly gaining favour as a means of making better use of nutrients in farm slurry as well as reducing both labour costs and pollution. The main benefit however is the prevention of crust formation on slurry, greatly reducing or eliminating the costs involved in stirring. Inoculant treatment of slurry with RWN Slurry Gold is an economic, simple efficient means of reducing nutrient loss from stored slurry in order to preserve nutrients for crop growth with a consequent reduction in the purchase of fertiliser. Slurry treatment greatly reduces ammonia levels in cow housing as well as foul odours during slurry spreading. We also supply liquid fertiliser, contractor applied which offers Nitrogen, Phosphate, Potash and Sulphur for less than the cost of granular fertiliser application. RWN supplies a wide range of fertilisers, soil
conditioners and bio-tech solutions. Working together for a more profitable future
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