Lime Efficiency — Stirlings to Coast Farmers

2019 Pre-swathing Drone Tomlinson Lime (2).png — Lime Efficiency

Key Points

Lime applications typically achieved a 210 – 870kg/ha increase in Oat yield over the control; Nil Lime application from 2014-2020.

In 2020, there was no significant difference achieved between 5t/ha and 10t/ha lime applications.
In the 2016 & 2019 growing seasons, significant yield responses were seen across the trial site in all lime treatments. This appears to occur in seasons with a dry spring & not in seasons with a wet spring as occurred in 2020.
A 5t/ha lime application followed by Mouldboard Ploughing for incorporation led to the highest average yield at this demonstration site in 5 out of 6 years analysed.

Background

The Stirlings to Coast Farmers Lime Efficiency project was funded by South Coast NRM’s Southern Incentives-Southern Soils initiative and addressed the management of soil acidification to improve productivity and avoid future loss of productive land through subsoil acidification. Specifically the project looked at innovative strategies for achieving lime efficiency.

Lime spreading on the surface is the main strategy used by farmers to manage soil acidity. The efficacy of this strategy versus other options to manage both topsoil and subsoil acidity has had very little in the way of validation trials for the Stirlings to Coast area. An initial broad-scale trial was setup by Tenterden farmer Greg Mengler (now Chris Tomlinson’s) in 2013 following soil profile testing by Precision Soil Tech which showed subsoil pH of 3.8 (CaCl2). The main purpose of the trial was to determine how best to ameliorate subsoil acidity.