A nutrient management plan is essential on all farms

This time of year, the annual visit to the accountant will be fresh in most readers’ minds.

Your accountant will talk money. They will talk tax, advise you where to spend, where not to spend and how to spread any investment.

Do you care what software package your accountant uses to help give this advice?

You just hope that they use the best.

What is NMP Online?

Working with your adviser on a nutrient management plan (NMP) for your farm is similar.

You shouldn’t care what software package is being used by your adviser, as long as it is the best. Your Teagasc adviser will use NMP Online and, together, they will give you the best advice.

NMP Online produces a fertiliser plan for your farm including a liming plan, where to apply your slurry/farmyard manure and what fields to target with specific fertiliser based on soil test results.

It’s an ideal year to start using NMP Online

This year of all years, as fertiliser price is volatile and rising, we need to use the people and the tools at hand. We will pay heed to what our accountant advises.

We should also pay attention to what our adviser and NMP Online recommends. Good soil fertility is money in the bank. With rising prices, we have to look at fertiliser purchases as an investment.

We don’t make any investment without knowing what it will deliver. To make that decision, we need to know our starting point. We start with the soil beneath our feet.

1 Take a soil sample

A soil sample can be taken on a 4ha field and will last four years. This equates to a cost of approximately €1.23/ha or 50c/ac. Compare this to the cost of a bag of urea at €50, if urea is costing €1,000/t.

2Submit soil samples

The next step is to submit these soil samples into NMP Online with the help of your adviser.

3 Look at NMP Online

This is the key step – looking at the NMP Online to get the best return on investment from slurry and bag fertiliser.

Some of us will have fields that need very little investment. More of us will have fields that need help and with the help of soil sample results, we will now know exactly what to invest in and where.

We know that using slurry again this year in the fields closest to the yard isn’t going to be the best use of this valuable organic fertiliser.

But where is the best use of our slurry? Slurry used in the lower-index phosphorus (P) and potassium (K) fields is estimated to be worth €53/1,000 gallons based on current fertiliser prices.

Working with NMP Online and your adviser will tell you this and more.

Your soil samples combined with your crop demand will deliver advice that allows you to target the fields that need investment. Like any investment, you need a plan. Your nutrient management plan will set out your soil fertility plan.

Starting with lime, it will tell you how much is needed and where it is needed. Getting your lime right is key.

This plan will spread lime application across four years and allow you to spread the cost of the investment.

Lime on a lower-stocked farm will have at least a 4:1 return on investment. This is higher on more intensive farms.

Figure 1 is an example of a K map which you could also have for your farm.

Without even looking at K values, you can see that the fields closest to the farmyard on the left, have received more slurry than the fields that are further from the yard.

Convenience can save time, but it will cost in terms of output in the long run. Demand is an element of the equation that shouldn’t be overlooked. You only need to grow the grass that your business consumes.

A soil pH of 6.3 and index 3 for P and K is only needed for intensively managed farms.

Your accountant wouldn’t have you invest where you don’t need to and neither will your adviser.