It’s not often we can say February is a pet month as far as the weather is concerned but February 2019 has been one to remember for all the right reasons.

It has allowed farmers get fertiliser and slurry out on paddocks that need nutrients. The message on fertiliser usage seems to be gaining traction at farm level. We see improving soil fertility status on many farms, even if there is still plenty of room for improvement as far as optimising crop growth is concerned.

We report on the usage of artificial fertilisers in Ireland. While the 10% lift in usage compared with 2017 makes the headlines, we can clearly see we are only getting back to levels of usage in the late 1990s.

Lime again is a nutrient that should be the first to fix for most farmers. In 2018, the figures are likely to show farmers spread 1.1m tonnes, which still falls well below the 2m tonnes spread annually in the 1980s.

Should the weather come right in 2019, all of these signals point to improving productivity. This should help improve yields of silage, grass and crops to better feed increasing livestock numbers and allow farmers to feed stock more efficiently.