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Teagasc is urging farmers to continue fertilising their grass with protected urea after tough weather conditions.
Local farmers raised their concerns about the 46% nitrogen fertiliser at a recent Irish Farmers Association regional meeting.
Teagasc believes that protected urea can reduce greenhouse gas emissions, save costs and grow more grass on grassland farms.
Responding to a question from a local farmer, head of dairy knowledge transfer at Teagasc Joe Patton said farmers in the south of Ireland were unlucky with poor weather.
“We’re growing 70-plus [kg/day of grass] in Ballyhaise at the moment and it’s all protected urea. And that’s a killer to say when we know the growth here is only 30, but that’s a weather issue,” Patton said.
“The problem is you can put out some CAN (27% nitrogen) this evening, you could get 10ml of rain tomorrow and temperatures of 20°C and you’ll say this CAN is great stuff. If you’d put out protected urea, you would have got the same response.”
Long-term studies
Protected urea is treated fertiliser granules which use urease inhibitor to reduce the ammonia loss when spreading fertiliser.
Research done by Teagasc in June found that the difference in grass growth between using CAN and using protected urea was minimal.
Patton added that the positive news about emissions this year means they have more time to sort out issues.
“We probably have to put a longer-term study in place, just to give some farmers a bit of confidence over time,” he said.
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