In last week’s blog we asked the big question: are you ready to implement some strategies to lower your input costs, reduce your stress and enjoy a profitable farming system?
Let’s tackle the big one first – do I have a plan to use less fertiliser without a loss in profit?
This is the important one, because if you get this one right the others will seem to fall into place. Working through this stage requires patience, and if you rip out the fertiliser too fast it will end in tears.
Like any good plan you need to have a starting point, and I find a great place to start is to ask yourself three questions: What, Why and How.
What is my problem or goal, in this case how do I use less fertiliser.
Why do I even need to use fertiliser? And why over the years have I needed to use more?
Once we have answered the two first questions only then can we answer the last;
How do we achieve our desired outcome?
To answer the above series of questions a good starting point is to do a visual soil health assessment and get a good quality total soil test, this will give you the locked-up nutrients as well as the plant available nutrients. Knowing the locked-up nutrients can be key and could save you thousands of dollars.
A visual soil health assessment will give you answers a soil test cannot, qualities about your soil like water infiltration, soil compaction layers, aggregation and what macro (biological) life is in and on the soil. Combined, this information will assist your decision-making process and guide the right strategies to be put in place. If your current advisor won’t do these tests for you, change advisor or learn to do them yourself, it is not hard.
Even before you get your soil test results and do your visual soil assessment you can start to work on the forgotten part of agriculture, IMO’S (Indigenous Micro Organisms – including soil life like worms) and soil health.
Over the last several decades we have forgotten all about the IMO workforce, instead relying almost solely on chemistry. Up until the last decade or so the focus on chemistry has worked, but now there are cracks starting to show: poor soil health is becoming more of an issue, resistance to chemical groups like herbicide, pesticide / fungicide resistance and the increasing need for higher fertiliser applications to bring a crop to maturity.
Building your IMO’S will start to improve soil aggregation, allowing better water infiltration and gas exchange which facilitates the passage of air (containing Nitrogen) deeper into the soil. Nitrogen fixing biology in the soil then removes some of this nitrogen and shares it with your plants – free of charge! If you can improve aggregation and increase the IMO’s, within several years you could get to a stage where you use little to no applied nitrogen – imagine what that could mean to your operation in cost savings?
As your IMO’S build better and deeper aggregation plant root systems are allowed to roam further, just think what could happen if you doubled the plant’s feeding and watering area?
IMO’s are able to solubilise nutrients which are not currently plant available and make them available to your plants, and this is why doing a total soil test is so important. Not only do IMO’s make nutrients available, but some deliver nutrients (Uber style!) directly to the plant, making the available nutrient bucket even bigger, allowing you to use less applied fertiliser.
While IMO’S are good, they are not God – they cannot supply your plants with what is not there. You will still need to think about the nutrient balance in the soil. For example if you don’t have enough Calcium or Phosphorus it needs to be added. As an example, you might need to choose whether to apply a soluble form of Phosphorous (which will leach), or choose an amendment like soft rock phosphate which will stay in the soil until it is needed.
Right now, you are thinking – wow, IMO’S are cool! But how do I get them to work for me?
Well, that’s where we go back and look at Mother Nature’s plan. Nature’s plan is to have as many growing plants in the ground for as long as possible, photosynthesising and pumping exudates out through the plant roots feeding the IMO’S. When a plant finishes its life cycle it is broken down by IMO’S, returning to the soil solution, cycling more carbon and nutrients, so the cycle can start over again.
“That’s great” I hear you say, “but how do I fit this into my farming system?”
There are a few ways you can take advantage of Mother Nature’s plan;
- Plant cover crops or multiple species forage crops in between your routine crops
- Grow a multispecies cash crop
If you are not in a position to grow a multispecies crop then there are other ways to bolster your IMO’s and get them active;
- Investigate KNF (Korean Natural Farming) IMO’S
- Look into biodynamics, or;
- Different products like fish hydrolysate, molasses, and kelp or;
- Plant extracts and liquid Vermicast – standalone they are both good but used together they are a powerful tool (and are the tool I most commonly recommend for time poor farmers).
Now you are armed with this information (and believe me we have only just scraped the tip of the iceberg), what is the plan?
From my experience, research and talking to other consultants and farmers, your plan should be over a 3-to-5-year period. Once you start stimulating and activating your IMO’S plan to comfortably remove 20% of your fertiliser inputs in the first year and then 10% each year after that, until you reach that sweet spot. It is up to you how far you go, in my experience and by following this plan you should be able to lower your fertiliser rates considerably, if not entirely, without losing any profit. As I said, pretty simple but mighty complex.
If you would like to discuss your plan, how to start it, how to do a visual soil assessment, take a soil test or how to order soil amendments and biological activators then please do not hesitate in calling Luke on 0427 138 100 or Zoe in Western Vic on 0427 008 017.
