Farmer Focus: Slurry management getting a major rethink

Settled weather makes a welcome change. We seem to have cracked on and got up to date with the big jobs.

Third-cut silage is in, four-and-a-half weeks after second cut. Wholecrop wheat is in and clamped. Barley straw is baled and home, and slurry spreading is ongoing.

And we just got our building work done a few days before silly season started.

See also: Soil, silage and slurry rules under inspection scrutiny

About the author

Tom Hildreth

Livestock Farmer Focus writer Tom Hildreth and family grow grass and maize for the 130-cow herd of genomically tested 11,000-litre Holsteins near York supplying Arla. The Hildreths run a café, ice cream business and milk vending machine on the farm.

Read more articles by Tom Hildreth

The slatted slurry channel we have been installing is in.

When given a choice, the cows didn’t seem to want to go near the slats, such as when heading out to grass.

But after a few days of skipping over them, they seem to have got the hang of it. 

The next stage is to fit rubber matting between the slats. I’m hoping that will encourage the cows to walk over them.

Scraping up is taking significantly less time now that slurry is dropping down the slats and not having to be pushed across a yard and up a ramp.

Not that I have any more time, as I’m tanking slurry out of the reception pit every day.

A couple of items at the top of my shopping list will eradicate those two jobs, though.

I have my slurry collector robot ordered, thankfully grant aided.

I also have a slurry pump and separator on order. No more daily tanking for me when it arrives.

As there are grants available for slurry separators, it seemed logical to have one installed, especially as I can fit it into my building project.

Separating slurry seems to be the way the Environment Agency wants us to go, and I can see why when phosphate (P) and potassium (K) levels are typically high enough on dairy farms. 

The liquid element of slurry has most of the nitrogen (N) and sulphur, while the solid element has the majority of P and K.

The N element can be applied after every silage cut, and the P and K will suit spreading before reseeding or on maize land, if the indices are low enough for a muck-for-straw deal. A couple of our local arable farmers seem keen.