West Lothian Nutrient Network Farm Final Meeting – Event Summary

The third and final meeting of the West Lothian Soil & Nutrient Network  was held at West Binny Farm.  The topics for discussion were GPS soil analysis, fertiliser, an update on the nutrient budget, the importance of tyre selection and pressures, and calibrating fertiliser spreaders.

Craig Bothwell started the meeting off with an update on the soil & nutrient network farm project and gave a brief recap on the farm, its stocking and cropping. Jonathan Black demonstrated that the savings in lime from two fields covered the sampling costs and that Lime was targeted exactly to where it was required.

Gavin Elrick gave a presentation on different sources of fertiliser and what would be the cheapest forms of N P & K and the group engaged in discussion with this and how it could best fit in with their cropping. We also looked at different grades of fertiliser and how these affect the spreading pattern as well as flow rate for calibrating the fertiliser spreader.

Chris McDonald showed the group the silage mineral analysis and asked everyone to guess the quantities of fertiliser that would be required to cover crop offtake at West Binny. This led into discussion of nutrients etc.

Craig finished off the meeting talking about soil compaction and how with correct tyre selection and management you can reduce soil compaction.

Please use the links below to download the information leaflets that were available on the day.  Read the event summaries for the first and second meetings of the West Lothian SNN group.

West Binny Farm is one of 12 host farms across Scotland as part of the Soil & Nutrient Network.  These farms are taking a ‘before and after’ look at how to protect and improve farm soils and make best use of both organic and inorganic fertilisers, saving money, benefitting yields and improving farm efficiency and resilience.

You can read more about some of the other and historic host farms on the Farming & Water Scotland webpage.