Nitrogen use: How the Nitrates Directive is going to affect you.

(From Irish Independent)

IT HAS been said many times that nitrogen is the key to driving the dairy industry. In other words, nitrogen is the key to growing enough high quality cheap material to feed our cows. I haven't seen any farm in Ireland yet where the cow's diet is totally made up of 100pc grazed grass.

A number of you will have achieved 80pc of the figure and some of you may have gone even higher. But soil type and weather pattern play a major role.

Will you still be able to grow enough of the high quality grass we have been used to, now that the levels you have been spreading will be reduced under the Nitrates Directive? The directive comes into law tomorrow and the nitrogen levels specified in the …