Take the opportunity to spread lime

Take the opportunity to spread agri lime while conditions are favourable. As we saw last year, waiting until October to spread agri lime is risky due to poor weather and un-trafficable soil conditions.

Agri lime plays a major role in improving the 3 fundamentals of soil health namely:

Soil chemistry – fertiliser use efficiency
Soil physical structural quality – drainage
Soil biological functioning including earthworm activity etc.

Maintaining the correct lime status of your soils will improve overall soil health and fertiliser use efficiency, and in turn, improve your crop yields and farm productivity. Increased grass and grain yields of at least 1.5 t/ha are common when soil pH is brought up to the correct level. This represents a return on investment of almost €7 in additional grass yield for each €1 invested in lime, or a 7:1 return.

Planning your liming programme

Using every opportunity or window throughout the season to spread lime, if required, is important. As we saw last year, waiting until October to spread lime is risky due to poor weather and un-trafficable soil conditions. Take advantage of low grass cover after silage cuts and plan to have the paddocks that also need lime grazed out at the same time so that lime can be applied to both areas.

Develop a liming programme for the individual fields on your farm is as simple as:

Knowing which fields require lime, ideally based on soil tests
Knowing what rate of lime is to be applied (t/ha) on each field
Organize your grazing rotation to have paddocks that need lime grazed out at the same time as silage is cut
Have this information to hand, ready to call your lime supplier when the opportunity / conditions are right

Impact of lime on fertiliser/slurry

Queries often come up about the interaction between lime and slurry or fertiliser. Here’s a quick guide to follow:

CAN Fertilizer – no issue
Protected Urea – no issue
Urea:
- Urea before Lime – leave 10 days between applications
- Lime before Urea – avoid Urea for 3 months
Slurry
- Summer slurry has little N impact so interaction irrelevant.
- Spring & Autumn – allow slurry to wash into soil (7-10 days) and then apply lime. Avoid applying slurry after lime.
P & K – no issue