Had an absolute gold nugget this week on farm. While I was doing monitoring soil tests on one of our client’s farm just outside of Hamilton, one of the workers pulled up on his quadbike and stopped for a yarn. I was commenting on how great the farm looked, with an abundance of high quality pasture around and the cows in good nick. His face lit up with pride and enjoyment and he replied, as if letting me in on their secret: “We haven’t had to feed out this season yet, pointing at his intact maize silage stacks and we think it is all that lime we put on in summer!”
HE WAS DEAD RIGHT.
The heatmaps below prove his point, on the left we can see the Calcium Base Saturation % and on the right the pH across the farm. A lack of calcium leads to poor soil flocculation and aggregation, slow water infiltration and sub-optimal drainage. All of these big issues on this particular farm with a flat contour, high water table, high clay % and high stocking rate.
256 tons of lime later, the farm has responded in a massive way and is just beaming life. To such an extend that a normal farm worker (with most likely no formal education in soil science) can see the difference.
We need to re-learn the skill to see what NATURE is telling us, if you create the right environment SHE will respond.
The importance of calcium
By
/ October 5, 2024 