If there's one thing we can all agree on, it's that our success starts from the ground up – quite literally. To ensure the maximum return on investment from forage, we should begin with a soil analysis.
A soil analysis provides you with the essential information about the pH and nutrients in your soil. This fundamental information highlights areas requiring supplementation to support nutrient demand from the growing crop.
It will help you make informed decisions on the type and quantity of fertiliser or manures required to reach target levels for optimum crop production. This allows better planning of nutrient applications to the soil, avoiding over or under application of nutrients (such as when the same fertiliser is applied each year with no adjustment for changes). Not only will this make your business more efficient, but it will also help to reduce the risk of valuable nutrients being lost to the environment.
Feeding soil and getting its nutrients right is as important as feeding animals correctly and is fundamental to getting good grass and crop growth to make feeding animals more efficient. The ability to produce high quality forage in sufficient quantities underpins most dairy cow diets. Careful planning is needed to ensure we can make this as likely as possible.
Soil analysis is worth considering in the autumn and early spring when the soils are fully wet, and this can allow for spring supplementation to support optimal growth next year.
For further information regarding our soil analysis service or any of our other Technical Services available from Dugdale Nutrition, please contact your local DN Sales Specialist or call us on 01200 420200 and we will be happy to help.