With continued rain this week, the slurry situation across the country is becoming rather bleak.

Cows are still housed on the vast majority of farms and tanks are quickly filling, all while farmers are unable to travel fields given the saturation levels.

According to Met Éireann, the rain will continue to fall over the next week, with east and the south-east continuing to experience two to three time more than the average rainfall.

Meanwhile, farmers across the country are heading into their twentieth week of storing slurry, more for some.

And although many farms typically have the space for 22 weeks, especially ahead of the new nitrates rules where slurry storage will go from 0.33m³ per cow/week to 0.4m³ per cow/week, tanks are still quickly filling and reaching their breaking point.

Getting slurry out

The majority of farmers in the south-east would have planned to hit light paddocks with 2,000g/ac of watery slurry in early February or even late January to get grass growing for early grazing.

Now many of these farmers are reaching a crisis point as we enter the second week of February, and will need exceptional management to get them through this period.

Simple fixes could save you headaches; for example more often than not, there is a gutter leaking near the tank letting rainwater in and impacting slurry storage.

Fixing that and diverting water could currently be a saviour.

Many farmers are already juggling slurry between different tanks, moving overflowing slurry to a tank where there may be some space left.

Others are hiring in slurry separators, which remove the solids from the liquid.

The liquid is left in the tank and can be spread as a diluted slurry, while the solids are left separated as a farmyard manure (FYM) and spread using dung spreaders.

When the pressure finally bubbles over, farmers will have no choice but to take some pressure off, with many choosing to hit their direst paddocks with umbilical systems.

However, strict management is needed when doing this.

Management

Farmers need to remember that they are prohibited from spreading slurry when heavy rainfall is forecast within 48 hours, but they may be able to find gaps during the week to get out.

Spread watery slurry in your best and driest fields, where there is the best chance of nutrient uptake in the soil and minimised run-off.

A 10m margin applies on all farms for two weeks after opening of the spreading period and 5m thereafter.

However, considering the recent rainfall, the 10m margin should be adhered to even when farmers can get out with slurry.

Farmers that have fields with a 10% gradient or greater have been reminded that they must also maintain a 10m buffer margin near all surface water bodies during the slurry spreading season.

Ignoring the margin not only damages watercourses and local ecosystems but is also a serious waste of valuable nutrients.

According to Teagasc, with the current prices of nutrients, 1,000gal of slurry at 6% dry matter (DM) is worth €29. That is the equivalent of a 50kg bag of 9-5-32 fertiliser.

The following buffer margins for the spreading of organic fertilisers from waters should be followed:

Ideally, slurry should only be spread when there is a consistent soil temperature of 6℃ and above, as grass is growing and has the potential to take up the nutrients applied.

Currently, Met Éireann is reporting soil temperature with a low of 5.2℃ in some areas, and a high of 6.9℃ in others.