West is green for go
West is green for go
With such warm nights last week, T-Sum has romped away and much of England, the whole of Northern Ireland and the west coasts of Wales and Scotland are green for go.
But just one word of caution: Many of these green squares are based on forecasts and forecasts can change, so if you are in any doubt, look up your square on the Internet in Farmers Weekly Interactive or phone the farmers weekly/Kemira T-Sum Hotline on (0151-357 5594).
The FWi pages contain a database of T-Sum dates for each square, so you can check how this year compares to an average year and to the earliest and latest dates in recent years.
Quite often in early years such as this, early fertilising is thwarted by wet ground conditions but in most areas to date this year, spreading conditions have been good, giving excellent opportunities to gain an early bite.
The early spreading opportunities can also be used to maximise yield of grass for silage. Kemira trials have shown that a split dressing of silage fertiliser will significantly increase yield if the first dressing is applied on or around T200, in an early year. This advantage doesnt occur so markedly in a late year, so this year could be one to cash in on the conditions by applying at least part of the silage fertiliser early.