While many farmers will be looking into water-logged fields this week, there is still time to start planning your fertiliser use and at least aiming to get it into the yard. Many of the dairy farmers with good dry fields and good varieties are aiming to go next week with a second round of early nitrogen.

On the other hand, many of the suckler and sheep farmers haven’t gotten any bag fertiliser out at all yet and the recent spell of wet weather has delayed spreading.

The aim for this group of farmers must be to get out and start spreading nitrogen and slurry as soon as ground conditions allow. Demand for grass will be high on well-stocked farms and farmers will be keen to get cows and calves out as soon as the weather settles down a bit.

Managing soils

While fertiliser is key, managing soil health and not damaging soil structure are equally as important. With very wet weather, it can be very easy to damage soil structure in spring, either by moving animals or operating machinery.

On page 48 and 49, tillage specialist Andy Doyle goes thorugh the basics of soil health and outlines why you should not be damaging soil structure at this time of the year.

One of his key points is that healthy soils will recover fast, but good soils need air, earthworms and plenty of organism activity. Another point is that livestock are equally as damaging to wet soils as heavy machinery. It can take years to develop healthy soil, so maintaining soil health is crucial.