Monitor your fertilizer allowance for the remainder of the spreading season

Alan Dillon discusses new fertilizer regulations and the need to manage fertilizer applications carefully to avoid penalties and protect payments.

2024 brought with it the introduction of the fertilizer register on the Department Database meaning all fertilizer purchased is now recorded online and attached to the herd number that purchases the product.

Limits have also reduced dramatically in some instances depending on stocking rate in recent years with farmers under 130kg Organic Nitrogen the worst affected, a category which many drystock farmers fall into.

The year 2024 to date has brought many challenges in terms of late turnout, no fodder reserves left in yards and an extremely poor growing season to date with a cold northerly wind meaning while ground conditions are dry generally, the levels of grass growth since June has been well below average.

This low growth for grazing swards in conjunction with farmers attempting to rebuild fodder reserves has lead to an increase in the volume of fertilizer being spread on beef farms.

P&K reserves need to be replenished also after a few years of reduced P&K application rates due to fertilizer cost. Many farmers commenting on much improved growth rates in the past 10 days and are seeing a response to nutrient applications that had not been evident for most of June and July.

Farmers need to be mindful of their allowances, which will be outlined in their fertilizer plan.

If farmers have purchased different products than what was outlined in the fertilizer plan this needs to be taken in to account. For instance if a farmer had planned to purchase protected urea  and 18-6-12 but changed to 10-10-20 and 29-0-14 , then a recalculation must be done to assess how much of their allowance of Nitrogen and Phosphorus has been used.

Farmers in derogation and in the ACRES scheme need to be particularly aware of how much they are spread as exceeding their limits may put future entry to derogation at risk while those in ACRES may have their area based payments at risk. Many farmers in ACRES chose options such as Riparian Zone and Extensive Grassland. Riparian zones have zero fertilizer allowances and are excluded from nitrates calculations. Extensive Grassland carries an allowance of 40kg/N/Ha so the farm allowance depending on its size may be greatly reduced also.

Case study 1 40 ha farmer in ACRES with stocking rate under 130kg Organic N/ha

Case study 2 40 ha farmer in ACRES with stocking rate over 130kg Organic N/ha but under 170kg/ha

Case study 3 40 ha farmer not in ACRES with stocking rate over 130kg Organic N/ha but under 170kg/ha

As can be seen the farmer in case study 1 has an allowance of 3740kg , farmer 2 has an allowance of 5870kg and farmer 3 has an allowance of 7400 kg.

In lay man’s terms this means farmer 1 has an allowance of 8.1 tonne of protected urea , farmer 2 has an allowance of 12.75 tonnes of protected urea while farmer 3 has an allowance of 16 tonnes of protected urea. All of this is on the same acreage of 40 hectares.

A farmers Phosphorus allowance is calculated based on a farmers soil samples separately.

What all this means is that farmers need to tread carefully and ensure they stay under their chemical fertilizer limits. In a year like this where grass growth is poor and fodder may be tight this might mean having to sell off stock much earlier than expected. In any scenario, ensure you stay in the limits and protect your payments.