Importance of Liming

Lime deficiency can be accurately assessed by soil sampling and subsequent analysis. Routine soil analysis is essential if you are going to maximise crop and grass production.

Calciprill is produced from finely ground, calcium limestone sourced in County Antrim. There is a body of work demonstrating the effect of particle size on liming efficiency. It is now widely accepted that the finer the particles (less than 75 microns in diameter, see Table 1) the more efficient the lime and the faster the reaction time (reactivity). This increased efficiency allows a smaller application rate to have the same effect as a heavy application of coarser material, i.e. ground lime.

Conditioning soil by applying lime is perhaps the single most important step that can take place on any farm. This is because it has an impact on a wide range of properties that affect production. Grassland pH in Northern Ireland is well below the target of 6.3-6.5 and this has a significant impact on soil structure, grass growth and fertiliser efficiency (see Table 2). Soils are constantly being subject to forces that lower pH, including leaching of calcium by rainfall, effects of nitrogen release from fertilisers, crop demand and decomposition of organic material. The top layers of the soil present the highest level of leaching and the acidification mechanisms are more active in the surface (mineralisation of organic matter, biological activity, acidifying fertiliser etc). Consequently, the soil acidity is concentrated at the soil surface (0-5cm) where the pH can be as much as one point lower that the soil at the bottom layer (15-20cm). This means the surface pH could be 5.8 and 6.8 at 20cm (see Table 3).