Mr. Jack Nolan:

The grass growth curve I talked about shows that grass growth starts in January, when we get above about 5°, and from August onwards it slows down rapidly. There was a study by Professor Nick Holden of University College Dublin, UCD, on soil moisture deficit which looked at applying slurry based on when the land could take it and a tanker could travel. That showed that one should be spreading less than what is allowed in the open period. It is 8 p.m. now and it is dark outside. If this was May or June it would probably still be bright and warmer. Temperatures have dropped now. Applying slurry on a dry day in November is going to do a lot more harm than applying it next spring. One is getting no value out of it and paying the same amount of money for spreading it. The Teagasc agricultural catchment programme shows that when there is high rainfall, regardless of the time of year, there are going to be losses. Up to 50% of the losses from agriculture can occur during the closed period and when there is rainfall or storm events throughout the year.

Farming by calendar definitely annoys people because they are being told what to do. However, what the Senator said goes to the heart of the issue. People are stuck in January. No cattle are in a shed yet. This is the middle of October. If I had 16 weeks' storage, which I need in this part of the country, it would get me up to the middle of February. Why are people spreading in the middle of January? The reason is that they do not have enough storage. They look at the legal minimum in the regulation and say they will get by. However, they are not getting by, and that is causing many of our water problems. We do not have enough slurry storage to get us out to the time of the year when we will get most value from it.