10 Million euro Soil Sampling Programme.

so scheme is to open today right? I amn't in Teagasc so no option showing for me on the dept site do I need to go through a private agent or does anyone know

Just sign up on agfoods. i did it this morning

I read through the Terms & conditions, seems straight forward. They'll come out & soil sample and then send you results. Its something that i need to do anyway so might as well join and save a few bob organizing it myself.

My assumption of it was that the sampling and results were free but you got no grant for entering the scheme like you do for others like the sheep welfare scheme?

one thing I did hear was contract was awarded to an outside of Ireland company so samples will be flown out, whether that's due to a lab here not being able or what I don't know.

Either way we are going to be told what we can and cannot do on our land so I applied as better be in these things from the start is my experience as no doubt they will tie further schemes to you being involved in this and the other hair brained schemes

How much would it cost to get an average farm soil sampled?

FBA lane in Waterford are €14 for PH P & K

They’re €30 for more in-depth test

Applied.

Timely given fert is rising so measurement becomes more important.

I'd imagine my results will stink. Didn't think that it could be used to limit what you can apply thou. Suppose if selected could always leave..

Agreed, although there are certain circumstances where it could get tricky. I have one block of land that’s off the scale for P, if the indexes kept rising after 4 it’d be up somewhere near index 10 the agronomist says. It’s above the maximum that can be measured. Obviously it shouldn’t need any extra P but the agronomist says at such a high level of P, it is probably locked in the soil and so I need to get a maintenance level out every year on it to keep growth right. I do this by getting slurry on it a few times a year and the only bagged fert it gets is mostly 19-0-15 or just nitrogen. If I was prevented from allowing any P out on that would it mean I wouldn’t be allowed spread slurry there?

Also, as far as I remember, and I stand to be corrected, for anyone lowly stocked, I think at less than 120kgs/ha of organic N, if you are index 3 in land you’re only allowed 8 or 10 units of P per acre per year, unless you can show the land is used solely for silage or that the silage or hay taken from it was sold off farm. If you are index 4 you’re not allowed any P at all regardless of stocking rate. That’s fine for any fert you’re buying, it can be bought without the P but it also leaves you in a situation where you can’t import any slurry as you wouldn’t be allowed bring in the P in the slurry. Around here there is easy access to pig slurry and it’s a huge help to keep the fertiliser costs down so if I wasn’t allowed import pig slurry due to soil sample results it would have an economical effect on my farm as I’d have to buy in more N and K instead of using the free pig slurry.

How do ya apply for this?

I'm in 2 minds about this, on the one hand a full soil analysis would be good to have if you could take the terms and conditions at face value that this is to encourage farmers to optimise fertiliser usage.

On the other hand there's a Trojan horse feel about this. The government do have a tendency to move the goalposts when it suits them.

On balance with the forestry example I'm more likely to opt out and pay to get analysis done myself.

I don't have teagasc membership and applied. It's not needed. They state that results will be sent to the farmer

In Min till and zero till the most fertile soil is on top . It is known as layering .In some countries they are looking for the farmer to build up Carbon in the soil and when it gets high to deep plough it so it cannot be lost by subsequent land activities If you want to loose carbon plough a ley field to reseed it every five years .

When do you find out if you've been accepted/or not into the scheme?

Farmeye

He is the 3rd choice to be fair to the chap, he should never of got anywhere next our near the job...

Looks like the scheme is over subscribed already, if not it's pretty much at capacity. Nice to see a good take up in it.