Considering an investment in new slurry management technology has never been so timely, as fertiliser prices soar, environmental demands grow and Government financial support for equipment investment increases.

Kevin Fennelly, Market Advisor for Enterprise Ireland UK, says, “Utilising new developments in slurry equipment has the potential to improve farm productivity significantly and should be considered for future farm business sustainability. LAMMA presents an ideal opportunity to research new options available to the industry and assess the benefit to farm business profitability.”

Commenting on the advances made in slurry equipment technology, David O’Malley, UK sales Manager for Abbey Machinery who will be in attendance at LAMMA, says, “Abbey Machinery support reduced emissions spreading with our new Slurry Applicator technology. We’ve added a collection of smart technology to our equipment, including Multi-Stage Rapid Filling Arm, Application Flow Control and NIR Live Sensing of the nutrient value in the Slurry, helping the customer achieve the most nutrients and value out of their slurry. Two of our new low emission slurry spreading applicators include a 10.7 DM Band Spreader and a 7.7 metre Trailing Shoe Premium Plus version, which reduces the surface area of the slurry by placing it in narrow bands rather than a thin film on the grass. The band spreader will deliver up to 30% reduction and the trailing shoe up to 60% reduction in ammonia losses. These innovative machinery solutions make sustainable, data driven farming as efficient and easy as possible for the farmer.”

Also attending LAMMA, Mastek is well known for its range of slurry solutions and this year at the event will be showcasing their two big sellers, the professional universal dribble bar and the tanker mounted micro trailing shoe. Also, the increasingly popular tanker mounted 10 metre hybrid dribble bar and their market leading 12 metre twin macerator umbilical dribble bar will be on display. “Recent years have seen a shift to low emissions slurry spreading equipment, and this interest has increased more so with Nitrogen prices where they are. Farmers need technology that makes better use of slurry. and new innovations have shown,” says Ben Willcox, Mastek UK Technical Sales. “Spreading with low emission spreading, such as dribble bars and trailing shoe applicators, can double the nitrogen recovery as well as reducing leaf contamination and smell.”

Ben adds, “Users of our machines report increases of grass grown from their own organic manure and less dependence on bought in artificial fertilisers. Turn around on grazing and cutting is quicker so more cows can be grazed per acre and the uptake in nitrogen on grass leys mean heavier cuts on a multi cut system.”

Kerry Mechanical Engineering will attend LAMMA for the first time this year and will bring an impressive range of machinery technologies to the event, including a 7.5 meter and 9.6-meter dribble bar; both of which can be retro fitted to almost any tanker. Both machines feature their own multi-cut easy-access macerator, which has 6 replaceable blades and a patent pending venting system. Con Daly, Kerry Mechanical Engineering, adds, “We also hope to display our static macerator which is for use with umbilical slurry systems and is attracting a lot of interest this year.

“This development provides farmers and contractors with a consistent slurry supply to the slurry pump, eliminating lumps of silage and long fibrosis materials which traditionally increases wear and stress on the pump, reducing output and resulting in increased maintenance and fuel bills.

“This machine is also ideally suited to the biogas industry which we’ll also launch later this year as an electric version,” he concludes.

More information can be found at https://www.abbeymachinery.com/, https://www.mastek.ie/ and http://kerrymecheng.com/