Arable crops

Is Your Spreader Ready for Spring?

Winter jobs will soon be approaching – one of which should be checking your fertiliser spreader. Does maintaining your spreader make that much difference? Yes - a poorly maintained spreader can create striping, causing variability in growth and therefore yield and profit.

It’s not just the setup of the spreader that is important. If you’re aiming for accuracy and have invested in a sensing technology to increase this then you need to choose a good quality product to go with it. There is no point variably applying a ‘variable’ product such as a blend, as you are building in more variation by doing this. A good quality product with a consistent bulk density, nutrient analysis, particle strength and size distribution is essential to get the accuracy desired.

Let’s look at it from a slightly different angle. Are you using cover crops, manures or other ‘green waste’ to build up your organic matter? This could lead to in-field variation due to the nature of the products being applied. Therefore, you need to ensure the spreader is set up correctly to apply fertiliser as accurately as possible.

Each product will have a different setting to get its optimal spread pattern, therefore if these settings aren’t followed you could, again, be introducing variability. Tray testing before you apply your first dose in the spring could therefore make a positive impact on your pocket.

Making sure your spreader is well maintained and the settings are correct will help you get the best return on investment from both the spreader itself and the products you are spreading, as well as accuracy and efficiency on-farm.

For more information on variable application technology please visit www.yara.co.uk/crop-nutrition