Farmer Focus Arable: Nick Padwick switches to liquid fertislier
After complaining about the rain it appears things have finally dried up nearly to the point that the weather might stop solid fertiliser application.
The weather seems to be mimicking the past couple of year’s pattern of drying the soil out with warm winds except this year they are cold. But unlike the past couple of years I am not having to hold off on my decision whether to apply urea.
Normally we would apply fertiliser in three splits, but I was disappointed at harvest 2008 by a 10-15% reduction in yield. I looked through my spray programme trying to understand what had been the main cause, but I had applied a fairly robust fungicide programme and the total maximum N allowed, so the only other factor could have been the weather.
Then I looked at DEFRA figures for volatilisation of urea. It talks of 45% loss of N due to dry soils and high temperatures, which could equate to a 10% yield loss and has been a problem on our soil types at Stoughton. In contrast liquid fertiliser only loses 16% of N to volatilisation, resulting in a negligible yield loss.
Last year, after careful consideration I changed my schedule from three splits to two and only applied the urea after the weather had broken.
I think it helped get the best from my fertiliser and the yield vindicated this with an increase of 12%.
Even so, we keep having these longer dry spells at this time of year, and so with the greater risk of volatilisation from urea and better accuracy from applying liquid I’ve decided the make the switch to liquid. I’m sure we will have more understanding as to whether we have made the right decision after two or three years of results from the combine.
