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Nutrient Management

Discover our mapping technology and how it can support your nutrient management decisions, helping you deliver for both your business and the farmed environment.  

Use SOYL's mapping technology to:

  • Build resilient soils and manage environmental risk
  • Target fertiliser and organic inputs based on soil needs
  • Understand your soil limiting factors
  • Optimise yield where nutrients/acidity are impacting
  • Benefit from peace of mind with FACTS-qualified advisors on hand to help.

Plus...

Use of our mapping service also means support with legislative compliance and your annual fertiliser recommendations so you can be sure you're always using the products and solutions best suited your business.

You can also receive independent analysis for P, K, Mg and pH, including organic matter and trace elements.

Nutrient analysis    soil sampling

 

 

The value of nutrients

Why do plants need phosphorus?

  • Root development and seedling growth
  • Crucial for every plant process that involves energy transfer
  • Photosynthesis
  • To achieve maximum yields (soils at Index 2)

Why do plants need potassium?

  • Essential for managing water relations in the plant
  • Increases a plant's drought resistance
  • Plants take up more potassium than any other nutrient
  • Maximum yields (soils at Index 2-)

Phosphurus deficiency can impact yield, for example:

  • Index 0 can cause up to 30% yield reduction
  • Index 1 can cause up to 10% yield reduction*
    *Source: IACR Rothamsted

Potassium deficiency can impact yield, for example:

  • Index 0 can cause up to 20% yield reduction
  • Index 1 can cause up to 10% yield reduction*
    *Source: IACR Rothamsted

Excess phosphorus can:

  • Increase the risk of water pollution through soil erosion
  • Cause eutrophication
  • Have an antagonistic effect on zinc and iron, impacting yield and quality
  • Mean extra expense spent on applications that are not needed.

Excess potassium can:

  • Risk leaching of nutrients
  • Have an antagonistic effect on magnesium and calcium impacting yield and quality can cause grass tetany in livestock
  • Mean extra expense spent on applications that are not needed.

 

Importance of managing your soil pH

Your soil pH plays an important role in soil structure and nutrient retention while helping to control availability of nutrients to plants. An incorrect pH can lead to increased disease pressures and low levels have even been noted to have an impact on earthworm numbers.


Optimum levels are required for maxmium yields (6.5), can reduce nitrous oxide emissions and increase nitrogen use efficiency (NUE)
pH measures 

 

How does our nutrient management service work?

A member of our team will sample your fields using GPS to map the precise location of each sample point.

We use strategic sampling which can increase accuracy to 83%, taking a minimum of one sample per hectare and 16 sub–samples at each sample point. They are independently analysed for phosphorous, potassium, magnesium and pH, though further specialist analysis can be added.

Sampling points can be adapted based on various factors including soil type, biomass imagery, yield data or on areas mapped within our environmental mapping tool.

From the results we'll create maps for each field showing the nutrient variation that's present. These maps are instantly available to you upon completion on MySOYL, where you can view and analyse them at any time.

 

What can you do with your results?

Your local FACTS-qualified SOYL advisor will help you interpret the nutrient maps and provide you with fertiliser recommendations based on your cropping, soil type, straw removal decisions and target yields, taking into account any environmental factors that need to be considered.

 

sampling data

 

The results will help you audit your farm's fertility, identify areas of variability, strategically manage your inputs and support you to create variable rate application plans to optimise nutrition programmes including the use of farmyard manure, slurry, biosolids and compost.

With all of this information, we can then work with you to define your application programmes and provide speading files for your GPS system.

 

nutrient maps 1

 

Find out more

For help with nutrient management on your farm, get in touch at info@soyl.co.uk or by calling 01635 204190.

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