"My priority this week is to get slurry out and take the pressure off the tanks," says Ger McSweeney, who farms on just under 40ha outside Millstreet, Co Cork .

"I’ll be going out onto my lowest grass covers, the ones I grazed last in the autumn. I’d say they’re about 600-700kg DM/ha. I’ll apply 2,000 gallons per acre there.

"In terms of fertiliser, I’ll go with half a bag of urea [23 units] per acre on my good covers as soon as conditions allow. "This was the ground that was closed first which means it’s mainly my drier ground. Hopefully that will be early February. I plan be getting out grazing soon after that but I’ll definitely be trying to get spreading before I graze.

"I didn’t buy CAN at all last year. I used protected urea from late-spring onwards and I was very happy with it. I didn’t notice any difference in grass growth which was the most important thing. I actually found it was one less thing to be worrying about too. Sometimes it’s hard to know what to spread with weather conditions during the summer but I’m told protected urea can be spread in any type of weather."

For full advice on spring fertiliser and slurry application, see the BETTER farm page inside this week's Irish Farmers Journal.