With dry weather and high nitrogen prices, which nitrogen source should we use?

While urea may be the most commonly used nitrogen fertiliser, I have always preferred CAN (Calcium Ammonium Nitrate) on the grain crops.

Working out the cost per unit of nitrogen, CAN is about 12% more expensive than urea. Is it a penalty worth paying?

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I am convinced that it is a less risky option in dry, warm weather, so despite the lack of certainty, we went ahead with CAN on the tillage and used urea on the last of the silage ground to be closed up.

The price of both is incredible compared to a few years ago.

I had no option but to order the fertiliser and get it spread

I am told that when things settle down (if that’s ever likely) that we may well get a refund of the carbon tax on imports, or some other help, but I found it difficult to get an estimate of what I might expect to get back if the rules allow it.

In the meantime, I had no option but to order the fertiliser and get it spread, but while the dry weather has slightly forced our hand on the fertiliser side, it has worked wonders for the appearance of the store cattle grazing the new ley.

We had sown the new grass last September – later than ideal – but it took well and was a good dense, highly digestible sward, with excellent ground conditions when we let the cattle into the paddocks.

This year we have no oats and a new market has developed for the rape straw

Meanwhile, we have our BISS form for the 2026 direct payments completed. However, I am conscious that we only have a fortnight to make amendments.

For the last few years we have used our oaten straw and oilseed rape to fill our straw incorporation allowance.

This year we have no oats and a new market has developed for the rape straw.

It seems to be an excellent fuel for solid fuel burners, so this year for the first time, we have to try and second-guess what is likely to be the value of wheat and barley straw at harvest time and decide whether we should put some into the straw incorporation scheme as a fall back.

Mention of the harvest reminds me that now is the time when a national check on how much native wheat, barley and oats should be done so that we don’t have the same chaos at harvest time as last year with some stores full of the previous year’s grain.