Lanarkshire Soil & Nutrient Network: Final Meeting – Event Summary

Third and final group meeting

This was the third and final meeting of the Lanarkshire SNN group.  Those who had attended the first two meetings had commented that what they really needed to know was how to do the fertiliser calcualtions themselves for their own farms.  With that in mind we had a classroom format meeting and went through the principles of nutrient budgeting and adjusting fertiliser applications to match manure and slurry applications. Local fertiliser rep Jim Mcmullen also gave a short talk on the price of fertiliser and how this is likely to become increasingly volatile.

Key take home messages:

• Soil analysis is key to carrying out an effective nutrient budget
• Taking slurry applications into account could drastically reduce your application of P& K as well as reducing Nitrogen
• Take slurry and manure value into consideration
• Spreading straights rather than compounds could help to more effectively target nutrients and reduce over or under applicaton.
• Current SRDP funding is available through the Agri-Environmental Climate Scheme to aid the construction of slurry storage.  See the Rural Payments webpage for more information.

Downloads related to this event are available below.

To learn more about this group and the host farm, read the Case Study: Crumhaugh Farm, South Lanarkshire

There are a total of 12 SNN groups throughout Scotland and meetings are free to attend and open to all and you don’t have to have attended any of the previous meetings to go along. You can read meeting notes and case studies of previous SNN farms at Farming & Water Scotland‘s webpage.