Making the most of manures

The event which is part of the Defra-funded Environment Sensitive Farming initiative will include a presentation by Gillian Preece, pictured, ADAS manure and nutrient specialist.

Mrs Preece will be explaining how to work out what nutrients are provided by manure and looking at ways to improve manure management so that fertiliser bills can be reduced.

She will be joined by Rob Morgan from Agri Contractors who will demonstrate shallow injection slurry spreading on grassland. Farmers will also be able to see the effects of injection slurry spreading on a field which received slurry six weeks previously.

"Agronomically there is no doubt that the best time to apply cattle slurry is in the spring, when the grass can make best use of the valuable nutrients it contains," says Mrs Preece.

"In practice however, more than 50 per cent of the slurry applied to grassland goes on in the August-January period."

One of the main reasons for this is farmers' concern that spring applications will adversely affect grazing and silage. Research by ADAS and IGER has shown that this need not be the case.

"The research concluded that changing application technique is one very good way of overcoming these quality issues. Where shallow injection equipment was used, good-quality grass silage was made even under extreme conditions when slurry applications were made just two weeks before cutting."

Visit www.environmentsensitivefarming.co.uk or call 0845 602 3864 to reserve your place.