Farmers operating in zone A for slurry spreading, that is counties Carlow, Cork, Dublin, Kildare, Kilkenny, Laois, Offaly, Tipperary, Waterford, Wexford, and Wicklow are permitted to spread slurry from Tuesday 13 January.

Zone B opens on 16 January for farmers in Clare, Galway, Kerry, Limerick, Longford, Louth, Mayo, Meath, Roscommon, Sligo, and Westmeath.

Meanwhile, farmers in Zone C – Donegal, Cavan, Leitrim and

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Monaghan – and in all farmers in Northern Ireland must wait until 1 February before tankers and pipes can start rolling.

Heading into mid-December, many farmers were concerned that slurry tanks would be under big pressure by early January. However, from talking to farmers it seems that most are in a comfortable enough position in terms of capacity.

It's worth noting that rainfall levels have been lower than normal for the last three weeks and that rainfall levels were higher than normal in the month prior.

This suggests that rainfall does have a big impact on tank capacity, which was a conclusion of the Teagasc report on slurry storage published last year.

At this stage, the majority of farmers must use low emission slurry spreading when applying slurry.

This technology facilitates the application of slurry to fields with more grass than would be acceptable if using a splash plate, without tainting the grass.

Generally speaking, it's best not to apply slurry to fields with a grass cover of more than 700kg DM/ha.

In terms of the efficiency of the nitrogen in the slurry, more dilute slurry works faster than thick slurry and dilute slurry is also easier to spread.

The general advice is to spread approximately one third of the grazing platform with slurry in early spring and to spread the other two-thirds with nitrogen fertiliser in early February.

This means there will be enough area available for grazing in early spring that hasn't had slurry applied to it.

It's important to note that most of the value in slurry is the phosphorus and potash contained within it. Therefore, slurry should be targeted at the fields that are low in P and K in order to maximise the value of slurry.

Due to low milk prices this year, farmers will be looking to reduce costs wherever possible and making more use of slurry will be one of the ways to do this.

Therefore, farmers should be using slurry strategically and reducing chemical fertiliser where slurry has been applied.

Avoid high application rates in early spring with 2,500 gallons/acre a good target application rate.