What are your thoughts on the fertiliser price s for 2022

Gawddawggonnit

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118599334#Comment_118599334

On the other hand the most progressive farmers I know are organic farmers…by a country mile. The best I know is a friend of mine that farms over 1k hectares of organic cereals. When the usual solution of reaching for a bag/bottle are taken from you, you need to think outside the box.

The image of organic farmers as being lazy ne’er-do-wells is quite disingenuous, imho.

Gawddawggonnit

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118599666#Comment_118599666

Macron is going for re-election…

mahoney_j

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118599842#Comment_118599842

A thousand hectares is a massive help tbf

Tonynewholland

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118599842#Comment_118599842

Is he renting that amount of land or mostly owned

Gawddawggonnit

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118599948#Comment_118599948

Both.

He started with 110ha in 1995 and went organic in 2000.

nklc

The best looking cereal crops near me are both organic farmers

bogman_bass

There seems to be two types of organic farmer. The enthusiastic Gardner that presumes that if the scale up to 2 or 3 acres it’s pretty much the same thing and then there are the serious operators who tend to be above average is scale and above average is skill.

minerleague

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118600315#Comment_118600315

How do organic cereal growers establish crops? Is min till out without sprays? Plough based systems release carbon ?

nklc

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118600724#Comment_118600724

One is oats and the other barley. The barley was ploughed , I don’t know how the oats went in . I’m far from organic myself but I’m glad to see them getting on well with organic. They certainly won’t envy their nitrogen loving neighbors this year

Easten

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118599842#Comment_118599842

If he's growing cereals then the quality, type of land and scale is very different to what this guy has. I'm sure if the roles were reversed he could do the same job and maybe better on the 1000 hectare estate. But he can only use what he has and he's farming 26 acres of marginal land. Without fertilizer the land is poor and doesn't grow much. It's a balls of a system, Organic is not an alternative for many farmers as the land isn't up to much without fertilizer.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118599858#Comment_118599858

Moscow won't win him any votes

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118591844#Comment_118591844

I know nothing about farming but hard to see how that guy could have done anymore. Awful for him and his employees.

K.G.

There 3 types of land in west cork and I'm wondering which suits organic the best

Land that has been made by digging up the subsoil and mixing with the peat

Land that had been made by scraping off the earth and breaking the rock levelling it and putting a skin of earth over it

Or

Land that has been made by digging out the bog hole and drawing g it up on the hill breading the hill and drawing that rock into the bog hole

Birdnuts

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118600894#Comment_118600894

Does he put any type of FYM, slurry, seaweed,lime etc. on it?? I have land like that in the West and it all depends on appropriate management and grazing regimes. If he is only running some cattle on it(especially heavier softer breeds) and nothing else in terms of management then obviously its not going to be at its best. We have a grazing regime that alternates the appropriate stocking levels of sheep, hardy sucklers breeds, a couple of hardy ponies etc. which works well with minimum inputs and keeps the likes of Rushes to a minimum despite the heavy nature of the land. A couple of weeks ago I had the privilege of getting an impromptu farm walk around the Velvet cloud ewe milk operation outside Claremorris and they operate a minimim input operation(one of the main reasons is that they cannot use conventional wormers, drenches etc. on milk going into the food chain). Heavy land too between a bog and a lake yet the use of wholecropping, fodder crops, herbal leys etc. means they can carry a fine flock of high performing Freisland/Landoc crosses on multiple lambing cycles across a year. Its something they developed in house via trialing different approaches themselves since the likes of Teagasc or DAFM have done FA in terms of trialling land like that in terms of a reduced input model

Of course you could argue that he should could go down the road of spending big on inputs, fancy drainage systems etc. so that he can possible carry a higher stocking rate of heavier cattle but I doubt the sums would add up too good on that in these times. Indeed I've seen lads do that around my place in North Mayo when they came back from working in England with a nice wad of money, but it just become a never ending battle with keeping rushes at bay with little to show in terms of margins etc.

PS: i just noticed there your taking about a guy with just 26 acres which is obviously never going to be a realistic basis for a full time beef/dairy conventional operation anyways, even in the best of times in terms of fert/chemical prices

farawaygrass

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118599315#Comment_118599315

getting There with soil fertility. It still some fields that are indices 2 for p.

usually go with urea for the first round and compounds then, 27-2.5-5 or 18-6-12.

so urea is still a cheaper source of n is what you are saying?

merchant reckons If it comes back 20 to 50 euro it’ll be as much and it’ll be dear for a couple of years

Easten

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118601371#Comment_118601371

NO he has no slurry, seaweed or Lime. He's not depending on the land but I only brought him up as his system is really what will a lot of farms without fertilizer be like. I fully understand where he's coming from with that system.

The new reality is the input prices like fertilizer are a new reality. It's not just fertilizer, it's now Diesel and other rising costs on-top.

26 acres was enough for a family once upon a time, his land is made up of 2 separate places as there is 2 old house ruins on them, but they are long gone and the people emigrated long ago

yosemitesam1

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118601573#Comment_118601573

Sounds like the place was raped of ps and ks, ph never maintained as well as any half decent grasses being abused until only sh1t was left.

Not in anyway representative of anything bar poor management

Easten

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118601613#Comment_118601613

Well at €1000/ton for the blends lets see how many will maintain the Ps and Ks on the land.

Hard Knocks

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118601686#Comment_118601686

How much is straight P fertilizer

Bass Reeves

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118601686#Comment_118601686

18-6-12 can be bought at 750/ton. Assuming that CAN was bought at 250/ton last year and 18-6-12 was bought at 350/ton. The extra cost of the N in a ton of 18-6-12 is about 300 euro., The 18 unit's of P&K ate costing 100 extra. Now fertlizer was extremely cheap last year so the P&K in 18-6-12 has probably only increased by 50/ton off previous peaks about 5-6 years ago.

Packrat

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118601573#Comment_118601573

In fairness you're comparing apples and oranges.

That 26 acres would have been micro-managed by at least four people (more likely about 12) with no hobbies or other time thieves.

They would have grown their own fruit, vegetables, spuds, rotated the spuds with oats, used the animal dung as well as their own, drawn seaweed and coral sand or else lime, wasted nothing, and not a blade of grass would be eaten without intention and a result out of it.

They were using rotational grazing without ever having heard the term.

They had landrace animals adapted to the enviornment and their management system.

Thats not the same as just throwing a few big French cows out on abandoned fields for a few months a year and cutting 20 bales of stems.

Anyone who thinks that's what organic farming is about is fooling nobody only themselves and their ground will have the signs of it (like this lad) in short order.

Easten

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118602706#Comment_118602706

I'm not comparing that mans system with what was done in years gone by. What I am saying is without the addition of Bag fertilizer many farms will soon see the fertility drop off a cliff. The Slurry produced on a farm really can only replace the silage taken to feed the cattle. So without imported fertilizer it will be a case of the land being able to carry less. At which case there comes a point where isn't worth the effort, and I believe its at a lot more than 26 acres. I reckon the 50 acre farm is going the way of the Dodo without Bag fertilizer. And Bag fertilizer at current prices doesn't pay for just growing grass.

I hope you are not saying that we should go back to some of those old farming practices as many of them were not that good and often plundered the land.

Packrat

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118602821#Comment_118602821

There's no going back. Life has moved on.

Yes, Organic at proper production scale will be a very difficult ask without millions of people micromanaging everything like was done then, and definitely 50 acres isn't going to be big enough no more than a conventional farmer can live off 10 cows on 7 acres.

Grass management is just one area that will have to improve drastically to have any hope of success.

kk.man

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118602821#Comment_118602821

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118588181#Comment_118588181

I know of a lad like that ...he did exactly as you said all his life and the farm is exactly like you said...the only reason he was doing it was not because of environmental but as mean as s&+@e.

mahoney_j

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118602821#Comment_118602821

There a fella on Twitter you should follow if your on it …Kevin o Hanlon ..recent organic conversion and real outside the box thinker when it comes to it ….say my name on here is also posts some v interesting stuff on soils and foliar sprays etc ….

Birdnuts

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118601573#Comment_118601573

26 acres was enough alright when we practiced sustainable mixed farming that fed a family and offered different ways to market, such self sufficiency is sadly something that has been lost in the race to the bottom of specialization. Though its nice to see in some areas a renewed interest in such things involving smaller plots of land purchased by people who want to explore the "Good Life" approach to doing things.

Say my name

I'd reiterate with you Mahoney on Kevin. I'm claiming that I introduced him to using the spade in the paddock. But then someone else before brought a spade into my paddock.

The last few posts I've been biting my tongue and just waiting to see how it would pan out.

I've a good few things going I don't know where I am lately. And that's not a brag or anything.

My teagasc advisor called in and was even sounding me out on things. That to me shows how everyone now is looking for an edge. And it's badly ****ing needed now how serious it's gotten.

I've posted before but been used (not on here) and I've seen others used to reduce inputs. Nothing wrong with that but you don't want to shoot yourself in the foot and have options taken away from you either. Maybe organic is the end game for more of us. But it seems there's derogations there too. 🤔

I'm still trying to figure out if a sprayer that doesn't and never will spray pesticide or herbicide needs to be tested to spray pesticide and certified to spray pesticide? Maybe I'd be safer going with the splash plate option in sprayers?

Only other funky thing that I shouldn't get myself in trouble with is today got a load of basalt dust to mix in with the dung heap and water in with Jadam microbial solution and hopefully cover with a plastic sheet.

(What p1sses me off big time is those from outside farming pushing this. When they have no practical experience themselves or skin in the game. And it's bloody well hard. There's nothing simple unless you've 1000 acres or an off farm job. Then you can be the converted apostle as much as you want).

Anyway. Still learning.

alps

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118603665#Comment_118603665

Nothing to do with specialisation...It has to do with requiring an income, for today's lifestyles.

I'm sure you could go back to old principles and grow enough food for the house, get your clothes repaired, a pair of shoes every few years...maybe get the kids through national school, but your involvement with today's outside world would be pretty sparse.

RaggyDays

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118603828#Comment_118603828

All the Netflix and other subscription services would have to go!! and probably the Electricity and iphones along with them

Gawddawggonnit

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118601613#Comment_118601613

Sebastion (organic farming friend) started a green waste recycling enterprise in 2002. This was key to expanding his farm. He’s got 6 trucks on the road collecting the green waste and composts the lot before spreading most of it on the land. Most of his place would be index 3-4.

Multi-cropping/companion cropping, green mulch cover crops with lots of legumes are used along with extended rotations etc.

Ploughing is standard practice for weed control. RTK guided hoes etc. He’s got over €1mln invested in specialized machinery.

If you ask him what’s the secret he’ll say without hesitation that being able to forward sell product for up to 15yrs is the key.