I WORK WITH A SMALL COMPANY ON SOIL FERTILITY,BIOLOGICALFARMING,RELEASEING FERT LOCKED UP IN THE SOIL,I HAVE 12,000kg/ha PHOSPHATE IN THE SOIL ENOUGH FOR 400 YEARS MAYBE.STILL WONT NEED TO BUY THAT AT X HUNDRED POUNDS /TON,COME ON FARMERS WEEKLY A GOOD TIME FOR A STORY ON BIOLOGICAL FARMING,VERSES MINED FERTILIZER.READ THE LATEST NEWS LETTER,RING ON01553 772525,I AM A HAPPY FARMING CUSTOMER,     JOHN.

HI KANSAS,THERE IS A LOT OF BIOLOGICAL WORK GOING ON IN USA ANY COMMENTS,JOHN.

Phosphate up to £600/TON today.Potash £380/TON.Do we need it at all??We need to make avaible to the plants what is in the soil,not emty the bank to the fert companys.I am surprised there is no debate on this.Weather still very cold big hail storms today,beet are a bit of a consern with cold slumped soils,1 inch of hail today.Good news a bit thin today.  JOHN.

Why has no one grafted nitrogen fixing bacteria onto wheat.?

We use sewage sludge, provides everything the crop needs and is cheaper than that Plocher stuff.  Even limes the field as well.  Can't beat the stuff, especially when injected.

Sewage sludge is fine until the boss starts to smell it as it gets wet and makes you move the whole lot to somewhere where he cant smell the stuff. Im all for it although it would be nice if you could spread it year round thus reducing the need for spreadable N in the spring, is there anyway it can be granualted to go through a spinner like the inorganic stuff?

Yes, you can buy it like this from Anglian water, and also one of the southern water companies - I think Wessex water, as Biogran. Or at least you could. That goes through a normal spreader.

Just to say though that Anglian water has already sold out or the normal stuff for this autumn and next.

Here in Cheshire there is a company at Crewe that dries sludge so it can be put through a limespreader, but it costs nearly as much as compound fertiliser.  Injected stuff doesn't seem to smell but at the Wrexham plant they are installing a methane digester so it will all be smell free and power the town as well.

Surely if you had 16 metre tramlines you could apply liquid on to arable crops whenever you want with a dribble bar, the lost crop from wider wheelmarks would be well offset by the saving of £50+ per acre.

 Using Sewage in methane digester kills to birds with one stone. Firstly treats the raw sewage and also produces electricity in a Enviromentally Friendly way. Why can't thos government see this instead of all these wind turdines.

 

And Robexel in germany they do have a machines that apply it at 24 meter wide. 

Actually, there is not much smell from the traditional limed/heat treated sludge - I probably wouldnt want to spread it next to the village though, and there are strict rules about stockpiling. It certainly doesnt smell as bad as compost from municipal waste. And you can cultivate it in with a decent cultivator. All that lovely fibre going back into the soil is the way forward; providing you are not growing milling wheat/malting barley/Quaker oats. For some reason, they dont seem to like the idea!

Your not suppose to put it on land going vining peas or sugarbeet either. Does it work out cheaper than normal fertiliser? Quite a few people are using it at the moment and just working it in with cultivators. Cant be the nicest stuff to work in changing metal on machinery so i pressume there are advantages?

Yeah, its really for stuff not going into the food chain directly - animal feed is fine. Cheep as chips; the stuff is free but you pay for spreading. I think it works out about a grand for 150 acres and put about 8t an acre on. That gives about 40kg of slow release N each year for 2 years, and about 110kg P for year one and about 60kg P year 2. And loads of bulky fibre for worms and soil strucutre.

For heavy land would suggest putting on after barley or rape. You can have it put onto cultivated land, subsoil out the wheelings, and run a KKK over it, or wait until it is spread and then go as normal. Dont see the point of ploughing it in on heavy land, and 8t an acre is not a lot of muck to mix in.

Advantages are you get two years worth of phosphate for about £6 or £7 an acre. No potash in it. Also get your soils tested as part of the deal.

Thats the traditional stuff. There are downers - big wagons want to deliver in the wet. No control on when it is spread. More paperwork for safe sludge matrix. Less friendly neighbours. Less outlets for your product in theory. You get a big pile of what is essentially human turds next to your farm, possibly for 6 or more months. As far as I know, it is also limed for disease control, so you dont want to be getting it on you. Smell vanishes about a week or two after you have worked it in.

Here is some bumf: http://www.nutri-bio.co.uk/pdf/Nutri_news_km6Jun.pdf this seems to suggest that you can stick it (or at least the bagged stuff) on potato land providing you leave a big harvest gap. For most winter combinables, there will be a gap of upto a year for wheat following rape. There is also info about the granules which are more pricey. They are for you lot down south.

Robexel

Sewage sludge might be cheaper than Plocher, and provide what the immediate crop needs, but do you REALLY know what it's doing to your soil biology, humus, and as a result, the long-term viability of your soil... your biggest asset?

No such thing as a free lunch

Regards, CW

The case study I read about Plocher looked like it was costing about £30 a hectare for neglible yield increase - thats the Frodlingham case study on winter wheat. Conversly, delivered and spread sewage sludge costs about £25 an acre for two years worth of phosphate and a bit of nitrogen. Even the plocher case studies on grass show a negligable result.

I expect sludge (treated) does similar to your soils as applying human sewage in the form or night soil as they had done in the Uk since the 1600s, but with the nasty pathogens removed in the treatment process. Disavantage is slow heavy metal buildup, but then we already spray zinc, copper etc onto the leaves of our wheat already. Plocher has only been about since the 1980s so at best they have quarter of a century of experience to see what their long term effects are.

I'm not knocking either, as I am in favor of anything that reduces my need to put on expensive stuff in a bag that has been dug out of a hole somewhere in the developing world, even if it sounds like zany hocus pocus. I'd pay a medicine man to come and chant over my wheat if he cost less than the yield increase. I'll visit the Plocher stand at cereals to see if I can get a bit to do some field scale stuff, because what I have seen from work on sludge shows me that it does work, and for me at least it seems the best way to get rid of someones waste is to return it to the land. Theres something like 6000t of soil per acre to plough depth, so 10t of dried poo per acre every now and again wont do it any harm - baling your straw every year is bound to knacker it.