13th February
N Sensor Grass Trials Commence on Grassland and Muck 2008 Site
Precision technology in the arable sector has been around for a number of years with many farmers now varying fertilizer rates within fields according to the crop supply. In the livestock sector, the opportunity for using this technology has been limited, however with recent increases in fertilizer price if there is an opportunity to use this technology to utilise nitrogen more efficiently it will be well received.
As partners of this years Grassland and Muck Event, Yara is looking to see what opportunities exist for farmers to utilise the N Sensor on grass. The major constraints of using the N Sensor on grass are the uniformity of sword, as normal swards tend to be a mixture of different grasses, or grass and clover mixes, all of which have different natural colours making calibration of an average difficult. Another problem is the spread of urine and dung patches in a field that has been grazed.
On 13th February an N Sensor was fitted to the buggy used to fertilize the Grassland and Muck event fields at Stoneleigh Park and a scan of the biomass from one of the fields was taken. With no specific grassland calibration the only relevant information was the crop biomass.
Yara will be revisiting the site on a regular basis in the run up to the event in to measure the grass. In order to get some useful data from the readings the results will be calibrated by measuring the biomass using a quadrant and analysising the leaves to measure leaf nitrogen content. This will be carried out on known areas of the field with different biomass levels.
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