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

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Optimising Lime

For the majority of farmers, they are not optimising lime due to the lack of knowledge around soil testing and pH levels. Similar to any business, it is important to ensure that your farm is achieving a positive return on investment. By optimising the pH of soils, farmers can increase their annual grass output by up to 1tDM/ha.

Planning

One of the biggest reasons for the fall in spreading of lime is the lack of planning; it is essential that farmers put together a pH plan as the application of lime can have a positive impact on grass growth. Although many farmers believe there are specific times lime can be applied, it can actually be spread year-round with mid-summer and autumn, following silage cuts, are the optimal times.

In order to put together a pH plan, farmers must first soil sample the farm to identify the pH requirements for specific soils. Following this, soil sampling must occur every 3-5 years in order to maintain the correct pH levels in the soil.

Bennettsbridge Limestone is a member of GROLIME, Ireland’s only agricultural lime quality assurance scheme.

To view our full range of agricultural lime products, click here. 

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