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Benefits of Liquid Fertiliser
With the increased cost of chemical fertiliser and increasing environmental legislation, the accurate and efficient application of fertiliser has never been more important. Liquid fertilisers offer an alternative to traditional solid granular fertilisers, with improvements in application accuracy and utilisation.
Liquid nitrogen contains two sources of nitrogen – ammonium, nitrate and urea providing phased release to crops and grassland reducing the risk of losses through leaching. Liquid nitrogen has similar performance to granular CAN but will have less volatilisation than granular urea. An inhibitor can be added to reduce the risk of volatilisation even further. When compared with granular fertiliser, nutrients are almost immediately available to crops (3-4 days for liquid fertiliser vs 7-10 days for granular fertiliser) even in dry conditions. Granular fertiliser can lie on the soil surface and be inactive for many days during a dry spell and typically requires 1015mm of rainfall to be made available to the plant roots for uptake.
With liquid fertiliser applied through a sprayer this leads to increased accuracy of application particularly at headlands and field boundaries, resulting in reduced waste while also increasing yields particularly on headlands as the full nutrient can be applied to the field boundary without the risk of product being sprayed into the hedge or ditch. This accuracy can’t be matched when applying granular fertilisers, even modern granular fertiliser spreaders have a coefficient of variation approaching 20%, sprayers should be less than 5%.
When a sprayer is covering both the application of liquid fertiliser and crop protection products there is only the need for one machine, helping to reduce fixed costs and depreciation of machinery. As tramline widths increase, the limit of how wide granular spreaders can spread is surpassed, whereas sprayers can be upgraded to match the wider tramline widths ensuring improved work rates. One change to note is that fertiliser nozzles are required as the spray pattern is much different to that from standard pesticide nozzles.
Using liquid fertiliser also offers the benefit of a wider application window compared to granular fertiliser since applications aren’t as weather dependent. Liquid fertiliser can be applied even during rainfall and generally wind is less of a problem as the nozzles produce a very course pattern with the soil the target, rather than plant.
Liquid fertiliser can be applied to any crop including grassland with research showing increased protein percentage, metabolizable energy and improved digestibility of swards along with faster grass regrowth and higher growth rates particularly during drought periods.
Fane Valley as well as supplying a wide range of liquid fertilisers also supply application nozzles and storage tanks for the on-farm storage of liquid fertilisers with deliveries scheduled as required. Nutrient Management Plans and recommendations are available from our FACTS qualified agronomists, with advice tailored to individual requirements.