Foliar fertiliser trial
Case study 2025
Background
The conversion efficiency of ruminants is dependent on the animal consuming well balanced nutrition, otherwise the animal will over eat in order to make up for an excess or deficiency.
The KI Landscape Board established a demonstration with the Wheatons family, on their Stranraer property, at MacGillivray to evaluate the performance of a liquid fertiliser called the Australian Soil Planners (ASP) Autumn brew in addressing plant nutrition. This fertilizer is typically applied 24-36 hours before grazing onto growing green pasture to improve the nutritional balance of the pasture to optimize animal health and performance through better conversion efficiency. The fertilizer was applied on 7th August 2024, by boom spray on half of the 2 paddocks.
The background soil test measurements of each paddock are as follows:
Tables below: Paddock background soil test measurements
Sampled 23/9/2024
Treatments
ASP: Calcium, phosphorous (as micronized guano), magnesium, sulphur, nitrogen as ammonium, zinc, copper, boron, selenium, cobalt, manganese, boron, fermented kelp = Xcyte which is used to promote cell division.
Control: nothing
Key points
Being a paddock demonstration there is a lot of variability need so need to interpret with a bit of caution.
- The pasture was sap sampled 47 days after the application of the ASP Autumn brew during which time it was grazed. At the time of sampling, the soil was beginning to harden due to the dry spring conditions experienced. This was shown by the elevated readings of key macro nutrients.
- Zinc and copper were deficient across the board
- ASP brew dropped iron levels below desirable.
Take home message
The demonstration exposed the dry conditions plants were experiencing at the time of sampling with elevated macro nutrients. With this in mind, the consistently low copper and zinc levels for both the control and ASP treatments identifies these nutrients are inherently low on this property. This highlights the importance of regular monitoring via sap testing in spring, thus enabling tailored management strategies to address specific deficiencies.