How to minimise nitrate loss in farming to help improve water quality

On this week’s episode of the Dairy Edge, Eddie Burgess, Specialist in the Agricultural Catchments Programme, talks about minimising nitrate loss in farming to help improve water quality.

Eddie first explains the Agricultural Catchments programme and what it does, contributing to the body of evidence required to support changes to nitrate regulations within Ireland

Eddie says that there will always be nitrate loss occurring regardless of the land use but that it is important to minimise the amount of it in order to attain the standards required.

He also explains the rationale for the closed period and says that half of the nitrate loss in catchments occurs during the closed period which is generally only approximately a quarter of the year. Given this, it is important that levels of surplus nitrogen, that is nitrogen in excess of crop requirement, are kept to an absolute minimum at this time of year to keep the losses as low as possible. 

To this year, slurry storage is important and the ability to store organic manures for periods greater than the closed periods is an important factor in reducing nitrate loss to water. 

Eddie encourages farmers to assess their situations and make adjustments - be that extra storage or planning to use their organic nitrogen better throughout the growing season to minimise the quantities being spread late in the year when water tables will inevitably rise thus carrying surplus nitrogen to below the rooting zone.

However, Eddie points out that there has been a consistent reduction in the losses in the Timoleague catchment over the last four years which certainly has in some part come about due to practice changes and Eddie says that if farmers continue to be prudent with their use of all nutrient sources on their farms, then water quality can continue to move in the right direction without having to reduce stocking rate.

For more episodes from the Dairy Edge podcast go to the show page at: 

https://www.teagasc.ie/animals/dairy/the-dairy-edge-podcast/

The Dairy Edge is a co-production with LastCastMedia.com