The Courier & Advertiser (Perth and Perthshire Edition)
Liquid fertiliser winning over Scottish growers
The use of liquid fertiliser is growing in popularity with an estimated one in four Scottish growers opting for liquid, rather than granular, crop feed.
According to Frontier Agriculture’s fertiliser business development manager for Scotland, Mhairi Robertson, liquid fertiliser is now available at a similar cost to its solid alternative, and more and more farmers are beginning to see the benefits from its use.
“The dynamics in the market have changed and the cost has come into focus,” said Ms Robertson.
“I don’t think we have ever been closer to parity on the price.”
One grower advocating the use of liquid fertilisers is Ian Cruickshank, of Sauchenloan Farm near Rothienorman, Inverurie, who has been using liquid feed on his 865-acre farm for the past three years.
The farm’s cropping comprises winter barley, spring barley, oilseed rape, winter wheat and potatoes.
Mr Cruickshank said: “I would never go back to solid fertiliser now. It (liquid fertiliser) is slightly more expensive per unit but it’s easier to apply and you do the whole of the field.
“The distribution through the field and the application is a lot better. Fertiliser spreading has gone from a two-man job to a one-man job.”
He said he had experienced a 5-10% increase in cereals yields since switching to liquid fertiliser, and he now plans to use it on potatoes as well.
Ms Robertson said the use of a sprayer for fertiliser application made it easier for farmers to apply feed to every inch of a field, and it was possible to use precision farming technology to apply specific amounts of fertiliser on specific parts of a field.
She added that the opening of Omex’s new liquid fertiliser storage facility at Dundee would benefit growers north of the border.
Frontier Agriculture’s general manager for Scotland, Bruce Ferguson, said the company would provide storage tanks for liquid fertiliser on farms, allowing growers the flexibility to buy what they needed, when they needed it, and to store it on their land.
Ms Robertson said previous perceptions that liquid fertiliser was too expensive and that it damaged sprayers were not true.
She said anyone considering a switch from granular to liquid needed to first ensure they had a sprayer with the right equipment on it, and they also needed to assess where they would store the liquid fertiliser on their farm.
“The number of people using it through Frontier has trebled in the past few years,” added Ms Robertson.
When asked about economies of scale, she said a farm purchasing 2-3 loads of solid Nitrogen was of an appropriate size to consider a move to liquid.