Grass after maize soaks up nutrients & cuts down waste
Grass after maize soaks up nutrients & cuts down waste
Environmental management of maize was just one of
the topics discussed at last weeks South West Dairy
Event at Shepton Mallet. FWs livestock team reports
G RASS sown after maize harvest will use nutrients that are available in the soil and stop them being leached away.
This was the message coming from Maize Growers Associations John Morgan, speaking at the organisations maize demonstration.
"Soak up nutrients with a crop, which will also reduce soil erosion and runoff. Wasting nitrogen is bad news for profits and the environment," said Mr Morgan.
He suggested that the crop grown should be grazed to help preserve soil moisture, rather than cut in the spring, and then the next maize crop established in good time.
Ploughing was not needed to establish a catch crop in autumn.
At the demonstration the Haward Vari-Seeder was being used to create a seed-bed and broadcast the grass seed without inverting the soil.
Hawards John Wayne said that inverting the soil wasted nutrients, and ploughing was expensive when a single pass could cultivate and sow seed when conditions were good. The field would then be Cambridge rolled once.