Farmer Focus: Wet winter costs us in soil damage
Charlie Cheyney © Hugh Nutt Unfortunately, February did not bring with it the dry weather we were all hoping for, and therefore there has been no weather window to spread the muck and slurry.
No chance for the crops to recover and get some early nitrogen on, and no early turnout for the cattle.
Although we didn’t get the weather window, a full slurry lagoon forced us to spread in sub-optimal conditions.
We spread on grazed cover crops destined for spring barley which will take the place of any seed-bed fertiliser.
See also: How to reduce soil compaction and optimise crop yields
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I am conscious that we may have done more damage than good. Some ruts on the headland and considerable compaction will, I fear, make establishment more difficult this year, as well as delay the ground drying.
That said, what are the long-term effects of this? These fields have been direct-drilled for the past few years and with the help of manure have been performing well. So, what is the cost of this soil damage?
Has it set the fields back a few years or have they become durable enough to cope with the harm?
It will be interesting to see the results, and what actions will be needed to fix this in the way of cultivations.
That said, avoiding this in future is a must. It has highlighted the need for extra capacity for manure so we can be more selective with spreading.
The next few weeks will answer this question, I hope. Sometimes closing the gate and not looking too much is the best option.
Elsewhere we have managed to get some fertiliser out onto crops to get things moving.
As we go forward, we will have to draw lines on some areas that are not going to make it. This leaves us with an interesting choice.
Do we double down and grow spring barley, or take the easy way out and go for an Sustainable Farming Initiative (SFI) option?
Unfortunately, the low risk SFI annual options seem a good choice to recoup any losses – just a little more damaging to my pride.
