Roughage tour weekend 10
Catch crop for supplying nitrogen in fertilization plan
For dairy farmers, the cultivation of silage maize is slowly approaching again. However, the sky-high costs for fertilizers, for example, are not encouraging. These high prices continue into the new growing season. However, catch crops, green manures or torn grassland can help to supply nitrogen. How do the dairy farmers participating in the Roughage Tour do this?
Of the ten participants in the roughage tour, several dairy farmers grow catch crops. These catch crops are mandatory for maize cultivation on sand loess soils, but they can also serve as an additional fertilizer source of nitrogen. An interesting sum of various factors, all of which provide nitrogen to maize. The right amount of nitrogen is very important in addition to the moment of release. A dairy farmer has to take several factors into account, such as insight into the nitrogen-supplying capacity of the soil, the catch crop, green manures or torn grassland. Insight into the space for animal manure and the option of row fertilization with fertilizer after full-field spreading of fertilizer also play a role.
These factors together ultimately determine the fertilization strategy of the maize country. This shows that nitrogen supplied from a catch crop, green manure or split grassland can be a major addition to fertilization. And possibly can save on other items. A potential catch crop could potentially deliver 10 to 25 kilograms of nitrogen per hectare to the soil, depending on the crop.
'Difficult to put hard numbers on it'
Most dairy farmers on the roughage tour do not really take into account the extra nitrogen that is released from catch crops. Participant Hans Schoenmakers, dairy farmer in Udenhout (NB), thinks differently about this. After the maize harvest, rye is sown on his farm as a catch crop. After processing, Schoenmakers does take the rye with them as a source of fertilizer. Schoenmakers has learned from experience that it is "difficult to attach hard figures to it". He always tries to grow the best catch crop for a better yield and nitrogen supply. Even if a catch crop on sandy soil is not required by the government, Schoenmakers continues to sow them because of the nitrogen benefit he sees in it.
Availability of nitrogen
The moment and method of incorporation of the catch crop is crucial in this respect. It is important to have a good idea of when the nitrogen from the catch crop must be available for the maize. Antoon Verhoeven, forage specialist at Limagrain, explains that the size of the catch crop determines the availability of nitrogen: "The finer the catch crop is destroyed, the faster the nitrogen becomes available". In the case of coarser destruction, the nitrogen not only becomes available later, but also 'gradually' quickly.
Reuben van der Maas
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