Arable Farming Magazine June 2021

Talking Arable

‘Grass-weed control has been pretty good on the whole’

Pages 10-13 June 2021

Volume 43 Issue 6

The complete package with Septoria protection built in!

POTATOES Controlling disease and managing resistance Pages 28-30

ARABLE WEED WEEK Boost your weed control know-how Pages 34-43

KWS EXTASE SEEDING THE FUTURE www.kws-uk.com

SINCE 1856

ROBOTICS

The UK’s first commercial robot tractor gets to work Pages 56-57

Innovation in action for progressive arable farmers

AF June p1 Cover AD TR KH.indd 1

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CONTENTS: REGULARS

JUNE 2021 VOLUME 43 ISSUE 6

In this issue of

6

Business 6

Escape to the country providing diversification opportunities Changes to the way we live, work and holiday are creating opportunities for farm businesses

Comment 10

14 17 80

Talking Arable Rain has arrived but what will the dry April mean for yields?

Talking Agronomy Patchy spring crops are starting to even up and weeds are following suit Talking Roots Backward beet crops are likely to need at least one insecticide to get them safely to 12-14 leaf stage Talking Policy No more excuses – it is time to change our mindset on farm safety

Technical 28 46

Concentrate on chemistry and cultural control How the loss of fungicide actives is affecting approaches to blight control Cereals preview A look ahead to Cereals, which is going ahead as a physical event this year

Machinery 56 66 74

66

Investing in robotics for broadacre crops Why a Suffolk-based farm business has invested in one of the first commerciallyavailable autonomous tractors Boosting crop nutrition application accuracy How technology and better working practices can help make the most of fertiliser inputs Cereals preview A look ahead to what’s on offer in the machinery lines at Cereals

R&D 78

Is it worth irrigating wheat?

Why changing weather patterns mean we need to know more about watering wheat

Podcast 81

Farming in a changing climate How can arable businesses improve their resilience as weather patterns change?

BASIS news 82

Managing game shoots Launch of a new qualification for personnel involved in shoots

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3 21/05/2021 11:25

CONTENTS: FEATURES

22

60

22 Farming systems

How do you get started with agroecology?

Practical advice on some of the perks and pitfalls associated with regen ag

34 Agronomy

Arable Weed Week Check out an exciting new programme of events tackling today’s most pressing weed control challenges

60 Agricultural robotics

Looking to robots for guidance The commercial version of monitoring robot ‘Tom’ was unveiled recently on-farm in Hampshire

63 Machinery

Curbing compaction Three farm businesses share their approaches to tackling soil compaction

70 Machinery

Harrow helps execute hybrid plan How one Staffordshire farm is looking to mechanical weed control to help reduce its reliance on herbicides

63 4 AF June p3 4 Contents AD TR KH.indd 3

JUNE 2021 21/05/2021 11:25

a word from the

editor

Contacts Group Editor – Arable Teresa Rush 01787 282 822 teresa.rush@arablefarming.com Senior Arable Specialist Marianne Curtis 07815 003 236 marianne.curtis@arablefarming.com Arable Technical Specialist Alice Dyer 07966 445 458 alice.dyer@fginsight.com Machinery Editor James Rickard 01772 799 496 james.rickard@arablefarming.com Production Editor Rik Magliola 01772 799 456 rik.magliola@arablefarming.com Picture Editor Theresa Eveson 01772 799 445 theresa.eveson@arablefarming.com Account Manager Jane Newton 01948 780 783 jane.newton@arablefarming.com Account Manager Mark Jackson 01322 449 624 mark.jackson@arablefarming.com Account Manager Chris Knowles 01772 799 550 chris.knowles@arablefarming.com Head of Commercial Solutions Mike Hartley 01772 799 532 mike.hartley@arablefarming.com Advertising Production Justine Sumner 01772 799 437 justine.sumner@arablefarming.com For circulation queries, to request a copy or subscribe, please contact Emma Williamson 01772 799 452 emma.williamson@arablefarming.com Subscriptions Contact: 03303 330 056 help@subscribe.farmers-guardian.com

T

here are storm clouds gathering as this issue of Arable Farming goes to press. Out in the fields, crops are being lashed by unseasonably heavy rain and gale force winds, while in the corridors of power a massive storm is brewing over the Government’s apparent intention to sign a zero tariff trade deal with Australia for all products ahead of the G7 summit in June. As I write, the focus is on the threat such a deal would pose to UK sheep and beef producers, but there will without doubt be discussions around the wider implications in the coming days and weeks.

So, with the Government being urged to ‘protect and not betray’ farmers, the news that imports of sugar from Brazil to the UK rocketed in the first quarter of 2021, as a direct result of the UK’s post-Brexit tariff regime, must only serve to fuel concerns and is, according to the NFU, an indication of what UK farmers can expect from future trade deals.

The Government has also announced its plans for a lump sum retirement scheme for the farming industry as part of England’s move to a postBrexit agricultural subsidy system. With payments capped at £100,000 the scheme has received a cautious welcome from farming leaders, but there are concerns that land released will simply be amalgamated into larger units. Economies of scale in arable farming mean that it is difficult enough to get a foothold in the arable sector; we must not squander this opportunity to bring new talent and fresh thinking into the industry.

On-farm, rain has arrived in the nick of time and crops are looking better for it, grabbing nitrogen and finally putting on some proper growth. Inevitably there are concerns around

the implications of an increase in disease pressure following, in many cases, pared-back early season cereal fungicide programmes. And in sugar beet close monitoring of aphid populations will be needed as April’s cold weather meant crops have made slow progress towards the critical 12-14 leaf stage.

On a final note, I’m pleased to bring news of a brand new event in the arable calendar, Arable Weed Week, which Arable Farming is hosting in conjunction with The CropTec Show. We are looking forward to a week of news, views, insights and discussion on the latest weed management challenges and solutions; find out how you can get involved on pages 34-43.

34

© AgriBriefing 2021 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system without the express prior written consent of the publisher. The contents of Arable Farming are subject to reproduction in information storage and retrieval systems. ISSN 0269-6797

Arable Farming, AgriBriefing, Unit 4, Fulwood Business Park, Caxton Road, Preston, Lancashire PR2 9NZ

www.croptecshow.com November 24-25, 2021

Origination by Farmers Guardian, AgriBriefing, Unit 4, Fulwood Business Park, Caxton Road, Preston, Lancashire, PR2 9NZ. Printed by Precision Colour Printing, Halesfield 1, Stirchley, Telford TF7 4QQ. No responsibility can be accepted by Arable Farming for opinions expressed by contributors.

JUNE 2021 AF June p5 Leader AD TR KH.indd 1

5 21/05/2021 09:03

BUSINESS With the Covid-19 pandemic transforming the way we live, work and holiday, the British public appreciation for the countryside. Alex Black takes a look at the opportunities opening up for

has farm

Escape to the country pro vi diversification opportuni ti Cash in on a campsite JThe number of working farms looking to cash in on staycations by setting up campsites has skyrocketed in 2021. And many are operating temporary sites to take advantage of the peak holiday season.

According to Pitchup.com, of the 2,000 campsites it had listed more than 700 were working farms, with 300 operating temporary sites.

It comes after a change in planning policy increased the length of time farms and other land-based businesses can legally operate a campsite without planning permission from 28 days to 56 days. This rule is in place until December 2021.

Dan Yates, founder of Pitchup. com, says other factors in setting up include concerns over falling support payments and

Pop-up and permanent campsites can be very lucrative, says Dan Yates.

the Government’s Environmental Land Management scheme.

Mr Yates says farmers are turning to temporary campsites because they are the quickest and easiest form of diversification to get off the ground.

“Establishing a campsite is very easy. At their most basic, all

you need is a patch of land and running water, which most farms have already, and some toilets, which are easy to hire.

“Crucially, you do not need planning permission to operate one for up to 56 days per year.”

And as well as being quick, convenient and unobtrusive on

day-to-day farming operations, pop-up and permanent campsites can be very lucrative.

“We have had one farm take more than £7,000 in bookings in a single day,” Mr Yates adds.

“We have seen others take as much as £13,000 over a weekend and £50,000 over a week.

Rural offices in demand JAs people move away from the city office life, rural offices could have a wider appeal.

Fast broadband connections, car parking facilities and a well thought out office environment, alongside an inspiring countryside location, are key to attracting tenants to rural office buildings. Converting unused farm buildings into office spaces is paying dividends for beef and arable farmer Jilly Greed.

Ms Greed has created a

6 AF June p6 7 Business KH TR AD.indd 2

community of businesses on the farm at Fortescue Court, Devon.

And the farm is a big part of the appeal, with Ms Greed keen on engaging with the public and her tenants about what the farm does, as well as utilising and repurposing the farm buildings.

The farm’s location, close to Exeter, is also a factor, with easy travel to the city if needed.

Ms Greed says the companies coming to the farm are making a ‘very conscious decision’ not

to be in the city centre. And the venture is supporting the wider rural economy, with the farm close to a post office, farm shop and local food outlets.

“At one time there were seven people employed on-farm. Now there is only one,” she says.

“We are creating employment infrastructure and in a way seeing people come back to the farm.”

In terms of letting the offices, Ms Greed says it can be

beneficial to involve an agent, although their tenants have discovered them through word of mouth or social media.

A fast internet connection is the most important factor.

“We were fortunate as we could create our internet infrastructure across our field to high fibre provision,” she adds.

“Before you start on the offices it is absolutely critical.

You need to know you can get that fibre connection through.”

JUNE 2021 19/05/2021 18:33

blic p for

BUSINESS has found a new farm businesses.

o viding ni ties “Although most campsites do not generate quite this level of income, even small pop-up sites – which are the easiest by far to accommodate – return on average £13,000 in extra revenue per year, and many take tens of thousands of pounds more than this.”

Kim Walton, founder and farm business adviser at diversification specialists Rural Ventures, adds: “Farm tourism is booming.

“A temporary 30 pitch site with an average occupancy of 40% charging £25 per night will make a £16,800 gross earning,” she says.

“This is a prime opportunity – whether as a one-off income gain or a test run for a future venture – without the requirement to obtain planning permission or a site licence.”

Pandemic sparks rural tourism surge JFarm businesses are tapping into ‘staycation fever’ as the British public seek out countryside breaks amid uncertainty around restrictions on international travel this summer.

Will Kendrick, account executive for rural insurance broker Lycetts, says not since the package holiday boom commenced in the 1960s have staycations been so popular.

Mr Kendrick highlights opportunities in converting existing farm buildings into holiday lets or putting nonproductive land to revenuegenerating use with the introduction of glamping pods,

tent pitches, shepherd huts or yurts.

But while rural tourism offers a new beacon of hope to farmers, any new venture outside the realms of the established business may bring critical gaps in knowledge.

“Of course, getting the right permissions from the council is a top priority but the myriad of risks associated with members of the public spending time on a working farm should also be a key consideration,” he says.

It is important to consider health and safety at the design stage, including creating adequate boundaries between

the working farm and public facilities, appropriate signage and separation of visitors from animals and machinery.

“Even with the most careful planning and execution, accidents do happen, so it is of paramount importance that diversifying farmers have public liability cover, as well as employers’ liability insurance, if staff are to be employed for the first time.

“Landlord or holiday home policies will need to be acquired, but this may not be adequate for the more non-traditional accommodation types, meaning specialist cover may be needed,” Mr Kendrick adds.

Is a ‘workation’ the next holiday trend?

JRising interest in staycations and the realisation that a lot of work can now be done outside of an office environment could open up a new role for holiday accommodation providers.

As people search for a better work-life balance, a new trend combining staycationing with the ability to work remotely could be one to watch in 2021.

Adam Davies, of Savills tourism, leisure and events team, says: “Known variously as the workation, workoliday or woliday, put simply it is a

concept that allows you to work in a different setting, one that is complementary to both health and productivity.

Success “Imagine also avoiding the Friday night traffic queues by leaving 24 hours early because your chosen holiday accommodation is suitably kitted out for work so your holiday can start at the end of the working day without a fraught journey running well into the night.”

Mr Davies says there are a few key points to bear in mind for success.

“Reliable and genuinely fast WiFi, good mobile phone signal that does not require climbing halfway up a hill and a dedicated workspace with a decent desk and office chair are essential.

“Additional features such as printers and a good quality coffee machine will also help the likely success of your workation proposition,” he says.

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7 21/05/2021 12:20

POLITICS WATCH

ABI Kay Our leaders are going to have to find a way to heal old wounds with the EU

T

he EU wants us to feel pain for Brexit.

That view might be commonplace among those Brits who voted to leave, or the politicians who pushed for it.

But it is less likely to be heard from business organisations which have consistently pointed out the importance of the EU market for the UK and which have a vested interest in ensuring ongoing good relations between the two.

That is why it was so striking to hear NFU Scotland president Martin Kennedy making this claim in a fiery blog last month.

Mr Kennedy put pen to paper after a Copa-Cogeca meeting, where he said it was clear the EU was looking to show other member states that leaving was a bad idea.

And I have to say, after witnessing the events of the past few months, it’s hard to disagree with his conclusions.

We’ve had the EU spat with AstraZeneca over the Covid-19 vaccine developed in Oxford, a U-turn on banning exports of vaccines to Northern Ireland and from France, a threat to cut off the electricity supply to Jersey amid a battle over fishing rights.

None of this behaviour feels particularly friendly and all of it displays an attitude which goes against explicit EU aims of international co-operation and respect for the rule of law.

8

One area Mr Kennedy highlighted as emblematic of the EU’s punishment stance is seed potatoes.

The EU banned UK exports of seed potatoes, deemed to be a plant health risk, after the UK Government refused to dynamically align itself with the bloc’s regulations.

British exporters are also prevented from sending seed potatoes to Northern Ireland, because it remains bound by EU plant health rules.

Defra Secretary George Eustice said the ban was a result of ‘the way the EU conducted itself during the negotiations’, but a subsequent application for recognition of equivalence, which would have overturned the ban after the transition period ended, was also swiftly rejected.

Reflection It is easy to say, and fair to say, that the UK Government’s failure to reach an agreement on seed potatoes is a reflection on its negotiating tactics.

But it is also true that the UK has a higher health status for seed potatoes than the EU and there has been no change in that status since January 1, 2021.

All of which makes you wonder what the response will be when the UK genuinely moves away from EU rules.

Peers in the House of Lords have already warned that tariff and quota-free trade with

the EU will be put at risk by policy divergence.

There is a rebalancing mechanism in the UK-EU trade deal which allows either party to introduce tariffs in the event that differing rules on the environment or climate protection were to affect trade and investment.

Though the EU is consulting on a modernisation of its gene editing legislation, this topic has been highlighted by industry as a possible future flashpoint, with the UK already pushing ahead to change its own rules.

This issue, though, is far from likely to be the only one which causes divergence problems.

The UK’s 47-year membership of the EU was always an uneasy one, with provocations, complaints and deep hurt being felt on both sides.

But if the UK farming industry and wider economy is going to thrive post-Brexit and bounce back from the pandemic, our leaders are going to have to find a way to heal old wounds.

About the author rAbi Kay is chief reporter for Arable Farming’s sister publication Farmers Guardian.

JUNE 2021

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SEEDING THE FUTURE SINCE 1856

19/05/2021 16:50

IAN Matts Ian Matts is a partner in his family farm, an independent agronomist at BFC Agronomy, and managing director at Brixworth Farming, a joint venture farming business in Northamptonshire.

I am a little concerned about what the impact of the dry April will be on yield potential IAN MATTS

Farm facts

U

ntil the rain came two weeks ago, there wasn’t a single crop, spring or winter, that wasn’t showing some sign of stress. The winter cereals were yellowing from the impact of the frosty nights following the T0 applications, as well as nitrogen deficiency due to the lack of soil moisture reducing the availability of the recent nitrogen applications. The winter beans were wilted and buckled from a combination of the drought and the frosty nights as stems started to extend. The spring crops were emerging unevenly depending on seed depth, soil type and available moisture.

Having now had more than 40mm of rain in the first 10 days of May, the story has changed dramatically. Crops have gone from a light green with hints of yellow, to a much darker green as they have suddenly been hit with a big dose of nitrogen that has been on the surface waiting to be washed in. Although the winter cereals are now looking a lot better as a result of the rain, I am a little concerned about what the impact of the dry April will be on yield potential. I have not adjusted forecast yields to account for this and was a few days off trying to do so before the rain came and I decided to hold off. It’s not too difficult to imagine

rBrixworth Farming is a joint venture farm business in Northamptonshire rCropping includes wheat, barley, winter oilseed rape and winter beans but the farm experiments with other crops. Cover crops and spring barley also feature in the rotation, primarily for black-grass control rSoils are variable, but predominantly consist of Hanslope and Denchworth series heavy clays with some Banbury series loams rAnnual average rainfall is close to 650mm

10

that any stress a crop encounters during the growing season is going to have a detrimental impact on yield potential, but what the scale of it is, is too difficult to forecast at this stage, with so much of the critical yield building development still ahead.

Conditions While crops were largely clean at the end of April, especially of septoria, the conditions so far in May will no doubt change the picture significantly. T1 spends on the wheat have been reduced according to variety, drilling date and existing disease levels and, as the showers keep coming on almost a daily basis, it starts to put a bit of doubt in the mind.

However, with the way spring has gone, the gap between T1 and T2 for some varieties will be relatively short, so this is unlikely to be too great a concern.

Grass-weed control has been pretty good on the whole this year, although some plants that had escaped the pre-ems in autumn are starting to become more obvious. If the tillering capacity of black-grass could be harnessed for winter cereal crops, I am sure it would be a massive boost for any late-drilled crops. With the move towards lower cultivations, it is evident that brome is

Crops have picked up after some much-needed rainfall, but the impact of the drought on yields is yet to be seen.

JUNE 2021

AF June p10 11 TA Matts TR AD KH.indd 2

20/05/2021 14:26

TALKING ARABLE

LG AVIRON becoming more of a challenge, particularly in winter barley.

The cold conditions this spring have also not been conducive for optimal brome control in the wheat, as plants weren’t actively growing around the time of the herbicide application.

The dry conditions through April have made arable operations less challenging than expected, with plenty of dry and still days to get fieldwork up to date. It has created some more challenges for the stewardship work, as establishing small seeds

that needed to be close to the surface was always likely to be a challenge with the soil as cold and dry as it has been.

The pollen and nectar plots went in at the end of the month, followed by a decent rain, so with soil temperatures now on the rise, these should be alright.

Not all of the winter bird food plots have been drilled; we chose to delay this until we had better conditions, but we are now struggling to get the required gap between showers to drill and roll them.

FULlY LOADED HYBRIDS High est yielding variety on th e Recommended List @LGSeedsUK lgseeds.co.uk/lg-aviron

The cold and dry conditions meant spring crops were emerging unevenly.

JUNE 2021 AF June p10 11 TA Matts TR AD KH.indd 3

11

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20/05/2021 14:28

HANNAH Darby As a partner in her family’s farm, former physiotherapist Hannah Darby switched to farming after studying for an MSc in crop management at Writtle College in 2015. She takes on all aspects of running the farm with her uncle and is a keen advocate of continual learning.

I cannot believe the extremes of weather and lateness of frosts we are now facing HANNAH DARBY

Farm facts rT.E. Darby & Sons is a family business based in Sawtry, Cambridgeshire, farming 360 hectares across three farms rLand is mainly organic fen soil with some wasted peats and clay soils rCropping includes wheat (winter and spring), sugar beet, peas, oats, beans and spring barley. Land is let for potatoes rNo-till and cover cropping are utilised where appropriate rThe main farm is around sea level and average rainfall for a harvest season is about 500mm

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I

sn’t it amazing how everything grows after rain?

The spring-drilled oats, peas and beans seemed to sit barely chitted or growing very slowly for so long, but with the rain in the last few weeks like always, nature catches up.

Our earliest sown winter wheat is behind the normal date for flag leaf emergence, but all things considered it will not be too long now. Unfortunately I feel that the potential of the latest November and early December wheat on the fen is dropping from a relatively low starting point.

After the wet winter, slug pressure and drought, it was all hit hard by the continual frosts in April which took off the new growth and part of leaf 4, and caused the rest of the plant to lay horizontally until the rain came. Thankfully, it did, and it has grown away well but you know the stress will be yield robbing.

This year we drilled the sugar beet later, on purpose, to try and avoid the frosts we have been facing in recent years. The April-drilled beet was slow to emerge, due to lack of moisture but finally we are seeing a better established crop. I am just hoping the frost forecast for the end of this week (May 21) will not come to much. I cannot believe the extremes of weather and lateness of frosts we are now facing.

It is not surprising that our opportunistic friend black-grass has pounced on the lack of competition from many of the winter crops. In previous years I felt we had won small battles in the fight to

keep the grass-weed under control, but it will not be the case this year. Much of our winter wheat was drilled later than hoped.

Historically we have drilled later to enable destruction of a flush of black-grass before drilling, but increasingly wet Octobers have delayed and reduced the potential of wheat crops which may not compete against black-grass in spring. As the rain fell soon after drilling there was little opportunity to re-visit fields with early post-emergence herbicides. Probably more seed was shed last year in uncompetitive spring crops such as our sugar beet and peas which struggled under the conditions – everything knocks on. Black-grass seems to grow at colder temperatures than most crops, so conditions for this weed this spring seem ideal.

I am not feeling that optimistic for a bumper harvest, but let’s hope I am proved wrong.

Plans As June approaches we start to pull plans together for harvest 2022. Having just completed our Basic Payment Scheme and Countryside Stewardship claims, the realisation that the cheques we will receive in December will amount to less this year has sharpened the focus on our cost of production and how best to get the most out of the land we farm. We are aware crop prices remain good but that input prices are likely to be higher. There is always the discussion of what to grow and where, while there is always a rotational plan, weed

Sugar beet drilling was delayed to try and escape the frosts.

JUNE 2021

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20/05/2021 14:29

TALKING ARABLE

Grow the Future burdens and the experience of the previous harvest mean things are adapted.

Our new Countryside Stewardship arable offer includes 14 hectares of AB15 two-year legume fallow, which is proving a popular option among friends and neighbouring farmers. It is drilled after harvest of year one and three and is cut to control grass-weeds. It is hoped it will restructure the soil, provide food for wildlife and

help control black-grass by removing ears when they emerge. Importantly, it also pays well at £522/ha. It fits well into our drive to become more regenerative as we will not cultivate after the fallow is destroyed.

I’m now just wondering if we should have applied for more as the frustration with stewardship options is you can’t change them as you see how well they work for you on your own farm.

YaraBela

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The cold has meant winter wheat has been slow off the mark and flag leaf emergence has been delayed.

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AF June p12 13 TA Darby TR AD KH.indd 3

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20/05/2021 14:31

TALKING AGRONOMY

BEN Boothman Patchy spring crops are starting to even up, with weed flushes following suit

W

ell, what can I say? It looks like my 4am rain dances earlier in the month served their purpose. Like Johnny’s drop goal in the 2003 World Cup, the rain came just in time. To date in Ryedale, North Yorkshire, we have had a total of 57.2mm of rain this month and without sounding ungrateful, it is sufficient, for now.

The low temperatures accompanying the first cloud breaks meant crops broke into a slow canter rather than a final furlong sprint. This posed a few minor headaches for plant growth regulation programmes in some crops, namely winter barleys.

Delayed applications of trinexapac and chlormequat meant a close follow up with a second growth regulator on too drought-stressed crops was not advisable. However, the arrival of rain has provided an about turn for some crops and started a race against time to get PGRs applied before the ears emerge. A slight rise in

Agronomist facts JBen Boothman is an independent agronomist and member of the Arable Advisor Group and the Association of Independent Crop Consultants (AICC), covering Yorkshire and the North East. He is BASIS, FACTS and BETA qualified and studied for a degree in agriculture and crop management at Harper Adams University.

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temperatures into the mid-teens spurred crops to take up the previously applied nitrogen and with this boost they soon kicked into gear, crops now look fantastic and full of potential. This, coupled with the increased commodity price can only mean smiley faces all round surely?

Oilseed rape continues to flower in a duller yellow rather than the characteristic bright yellow we are accustomed to. Crops are at various stages, however despite the recent rain I will be favouring a late flowering one hit sclerotinia spray based around prothioconazole.

Winter wheats by now should all have had their T1 fungicide applications, with later sown stragglers being the exception. Yellow rust has been the focus of attention in varieties such as Skyfall, Zyatt and Kerrin. The inclusion of a triazole in the mix has proven valuable in burning out the fungus. Alongside SDHI chemistry, this should help keep crops clean and protected until the T2 timing.

My latest crop inspections have revealed that leaf 2 is already having a sneaky peak into spring, while the earlier-drilled crops have flag leaf just starting to emerge. In my experience, dry springs leave canopies open and seemingly dead weeds coupled with new weed flushes mean another round of close inspections. May is a beautiful month in the UK as crops start to flourish and the countryside truly is a verdant green. Sadly, June usually reveals all the problems as a canopy of weeds head for the sky making you wonder how it happened.

Spring crops are also showing signs of life after

receiving a well awaited drink. Patchy conventionally-drilled crops are starting to even up with weed flushes following suit. Dependent on weed populations and target weeds, I like to advise a three-quarter rate sulphonylurea and herbicide partner alongside a low dose fungicide to keep on top of mildew. Manganese will routinely be applied on all crops as this is vital in keeping the plant healthy in its early stages.

Fodder beets My early-drilled fodder beets on kind land are now rowed up and ready for their first herbicide application. Anyone who read my previous publications will know I prefer the two spray broadacre programme. Both applications are made up of low doses of several actives applied within a short sequence of each other. Timing is key with this programme, however some product rates can be altered to allow for marginal flexibility.

Winter linseeds are growing day by day and will soon be receiving their final nitrogen dose, while spring linseed is establishing well and, in most cases, is now away from any flax flea beetle threat.

Winter beans have first flowers opening and although being a hay fever-suffering agronomist, it is a welcome smell I always look forward to.

Crops remain reasonably clean, so an early flowering tebuconazole-based fungicide will be my preferred approach. This will hopefully keep the crop clean up to later flowering where the need for chocolate spot-specific treatments can be considered.

JUNE 2021 20/05/2021 14:33

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19/05/2021 13/04/2021 16:52 14:25

TALKING AGRONOMY

JO Bell It looks like this season may justify one of the new septoria actives at T2

G

ood early May rain means we are in a better place than we were this time last year with our spring crops in particular. The winter cereals are also appreciating the earlier end to another dry spring.

But the cold, wet winter means the potential of many is clearly limited by less tillering than we would like. Even with the promise of strong harvest prices, we are managing our spend with this reality to the fore.

All our wheats had their early disease protection nicely ahead of the Bank Holiday downpour at leaf 3 emerged timing. This, along with the development they are bound to make up now they have moisture and much-needed warmth, should give us the threeweek maximum T1-T2 interval to maintain the best defences.

The combination of bixafen or solatenol with prothioconazole, or triazole and folpet in lower septoria pressure scenarios, used at T1

Agronomist facts JJo Bell is an Agrii agronomist covering Lincolnshire, Northamptonshire and Cambridgeshire. She has been an agronomist for 30 years and advises on all combinable crops and some root crops.

She is BASIS and FACTS qualified, and studied at Bishop Burton College.

16 AF June p16 Bell TR KH AD.indd 2

should stand crops in good stead with the inevitable upturn in septoria and rust infections.

Although they come at a cost, it looks like this season’s need may justify one of the new septoria actives at T2, alongside a second SDHI or prothioconazole. This should be on by the time you read this. After all, the last thing we want is the sort of late septoria surge we know can be so damaging.

Protection The arrival of the rain well ahead of T2 leaves us very glad we stuck to our low temperature-active PGRs at T1. They aren’t cheap, but we know they will protect us from any bounce back with rapid catch up growth supported by plenty of nitrogen in the ground.

Effective plant growth regulation is even more of a priority in our barleys which have also started romping away. Winter crops had a final PGR with their T2 fungicide in the first week of May. Spring crops will be getting their second at T1 well before the end of month. The third PGR is due along with the folpet we favour pre-awns emerged for ramularia, avoiding any temptation to do our T2s until the awns are fully out.

As I write in mid-May, spring barleys are unsurprisingly patchy after the cold, dry April.

However, they are still only at very early tillering.

So, unlike last season, they have the conditions they need to fill out nicely. This should make for much more even ripening, fewer harvest

management uncertainties and far less grain on the floor as a result.

Oilseed rape flowering has been all over the place and the late frosts have definitely hit pod set. This isn’t a worry though, as our canopies are generally well-branched with great compensating abilities. In fact, any main raceme losses could well have a positive effect on canopy architecture.

All the OSR has had its mid-flowering/early petal fall spray, giving good protection from the sclerotinia pressure that is bound to be ramping up in the warm, unsettled conditions. I think our crops are every bit as promising as they were at the same stage last season. And they have received a good drink about three weeks earlier.

Only time will tell of course, but this should stand their pod filling in much better stead.

While our April tissue testing showed low levels of many nutrients in most crops this season, we have only been responding with those that we know. Lancrop curves show they are actually needed at this stage of the season.

For the OSR, this means boron and magnesium in particular, with extra magnesium and copper prioritised for the cereals.

Finally, sugar beet. The good news is that it is all there and looking reasonable. The cold weather has kept early aphid pressures well below where they were last season and emergency authorisations mean we have an extra spray in the armoury. But there’s a lot of risk period to go until the 12-leaf stage.

JUNE 2021 20/05/2021 14:34

ROOTS TALKING AGRONOMY

DARRYL Shailes The delay in drilling and cold weather means it is probable we will have to treat the beet for aphids

T

he old saying goes ‘March winds and April showers bring forth May flowers’.

Not this season, however, which has seen the coldest and driest April since records began. May has brought much needed showers – and how things have changed since the rain, with the countryside changing from a yellow and purple hue to green with flowers and blossom. Although I think the lack of frost has had more of an impact than the rain.

The cold weather has delayed our asparagus, the swallows have only just arrived and I’ve yet to hear a cuckoo in the valley. Last year I heard one on April 11 and those big black bibionids, commonly known as St Mark’s flies as they normally emerge on St Mark’s day on April 24, are only now appearing around two-three weeks late. Will all the old names and sayings have to be changed with the changing climate?

I don’t think I’ve got a crop of beet that

Agronomist facts JDarryl Shailes is root crop technical manager for Hutchinsons, with a nationwide remit. He has been working in potato agronomy for more than 20 years.

will be down the row by Suffolk Show, although they have grown a lot in the last few days. With this recent rapid growth, we can anticipate some crop damage from herbicides as sugar beet is the most susceptible to damage at the 2-3 leaf stage with rapid growth and warmth. Historically it’s always the same, although even with the best planning we sometimes get caught out.

I have just seen my first Cavariella aegopodii (carrot willow aphid) and Myzus persicae (peach potato aphid), again a month later than last year, although last year they were very early.

On guard Over the next few weeks, we will have to be on our guard to ensure the virus they can carry won’t affect crops.

Virus yellows in sugar beet was a huge issue in 2020 and when the emergency approval for Cruiser SB (thiamethoxam) wasn’t forthcoming, as the cold weather in January and February meant that the criteria in the approval weren’t met, we assumed it wouldn’t be an issue as the beet would be too far forward to be badly affected.

However, the delay in drilling and then the cold weather means it’s now probable we will have to treat the beet once or even twice to get them to the 12-14 leaf stage

when virus transmission is likely to be less. We’ll be down on our hands and knees checking for the green wingless aphid threshold of one per four plants until the 12-14 leaf stage – so an aching back for the next three-four weeks or so. Old age is a wonderful thing.

We’ve just had a new emergency approval come through, so at least we’ll have a chance of managing if we get the timing correct.

Carrot willow and peach potato aphids can both transmit virus in potatoes, so monitoring of yellow water and sticky traps also becomes a priority over the next few weeks in seed crops. We have an armoury, even though it’s quite limited, especially against virus yellows which as we know is a non-persistent virus, so managing transmission with insecticides is a real challenge.

Virus management in potatoes is now at the forefront of integrated pest management and cover crops, location, use of resistant varieties, barrier crops and barrier sprays are now as important as insecticides.

The integrated crop management aspects of our industry are increasing rapidly, driven by sustainability, justification, cost and the approval arena we work in.

It will be interesting to see what it leads to over the next few seasons.

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17 20/05/2021 14:36

The

Establishment systems and cultivations create debate. But one thing is clear, given the amo cropping, in the end it becomes a very personal decision. Mike Abram looks at why four grow

More to cultivation c than just personal t

T

he cultivation systems growers use to establish crops, or indeed whether to cultivate at all, have created many hours of discussion in pubs, forums and on social media channels over the past 20 years.

Part of the reason it creates so much debate is there are so many factors to consider, from climate to weed control requirements, the area to establish in what time frame, to reliability and cost.

That varies so much from farm

to farm and soil type to soil type, so it is no wonder there are so many different opinions about which system is the best to use.

Equipment Countering that requires flexibility, suggests Ed Worts, arable product specialist with machinery manufacturer Kuhn.

That can either be in what kit is available on-farm, or by how equipment can be set up.

“There is equipment that can be used at multiple depths and situations, such as working at

deeper cultivation depths when you’re trying to alleviate compaction, and to a much shallower depth when that is all that is required.

“Or drills like the Kuhn Aurock which has a full width packer option and means it can be used in min-till and direct drilling situations when making that transition.”

One important factor when considering new equipment purchases is how easy is it to change settings, he says.

“If it is easy to adjust then

farmers are much more likely to take that extra time to set the machine up correctly.”

For very shallow cultivations it is critical for the set-up to be parallel to the ground from front to back and side to side, he adds.

Depth “At shallow working depth, if one side lifts by 20mm, you can potentially halve your working depth, whereas with deeper cultivations it is not as critical.

“We’ve now developed 12-metre wide disc cultivators

The flexible opportunist JFlexibility is fundamental to the success of Colin Chappell’s crop establishment policy. He has little other choice thanks to high magnesium content clay soils on the banks of River Ancholme, Brigg, which, because of magnesium’s greater attraction for water, do not take much to get sticky and difficult to work.

That is made worse by repeated flooding, partly because the river levels are controlled by the Environment

18

Agency, as well as seemingly more frequent heavy rain events.

And when the soils do dry out, they tend to shrink which brings its own problems, opening slots and exposing seed.

Attempts Ideally, he would like to do as little cultivation as possible, but previous attempts at no-till establishment made him recognise that his soils were not ready for it.

“The plan is over seven or

Colin Chappell

eight years you make the soil easier to work, more amenable to whatever kit you want.”

That plan includes starting to maintain cover as much as possible through the year and he has seen improvements in water infiltration rates.

“We are finding less puddling, but also less droughting as water passes through the soil profile quicker, while retaining more water for the roots to access. But I know I haven’t perfected using cover crops yet.”

For now, he has become an opportunistic direct driller when

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The

In association with

the amount of consideration to soil types and four growers have chosen their systems.

n choices l taste and we’re working on active ground following systems to ensure the machines are working at the same depth across the larger working widths.”

Ploughs also offer flexibility, not so much in purpose, but in being able to help provide an almost weather-proof establishment system, he says.

Plough sales are relatively stable, with a shift towards on-land ploughs because of easier use with GPS systems and reduced compaction, despite their relatively high cost

in wearing metal, fuel use and time.

However, there has been a trend away from deeper cultivation min-till kit, partly for those reasons, says Mr Worts.

conditions allow – typically winter wheat after peas or beans.

cultivator drill. That works the soil just enough, tickling the surface to provide a bit of mineralisation to allow the drill to do its job.

“In wet conditions, usually between November and February, we tend to switch to a tine drill, which works better in those conditions. It also works well on another part of the farm where the soil is limestone brash and can be a one-pass system.”

With black-grass a major challenge, the farm’s spring

Low disturbance “Usually I have to do a form of cultivation in front of the drill, which currently is with a low disturbance sub-soiler following the combine. If it is going to be bare over winter or a long period of time I sow a cover crop off the back of it.

“And then I follow up eight times out of 10 with a disc

Trend “I think farmers have realised they don’t need to be working that deep for a lot of their crops.”

Weed control is also driving some of that trend, according to Craig Simpson, commercial technical manager for Bayer.

He says: “There is no

one-size-fits-all policy that fits cultivation and weed control.

“Knowledge of weed population dynamics in terms of firstly correctly identifying problem weed species and understanding how many and where they are in the soil profile is crucial to help using the right cultivation approach to minimise the number of weeds you’re trying to control in the crop.”

That’s leading to two popular approaches, especially on black-grass land – either

burying seeds at depth with the plough or using shallow cultivations to deal with a minimised weed seed bank from the previous crop.

Perspective To give perspective on how all those challenges make cultivation decision-making so varied, Arable Farming approached four farmers to talk through their situations across four very different land types.

More farmers’ experiences over the page.

cropping area has increased.

Again, ideally he destroys the cover crop and drills without any further cultivation.

Droughted “But because the soil isn’t in good enough heart yet, it sometime slumps, so then I use the tine drill as a cultivator ahead of the disc cultivator drill, which with the cultivator kit on the front gives that little bit of fine crumb to get it away before it gets droughted.”

A key part of his black-grass control strategy is to spring crop three years in a row on his heavy land.

“Multiple years of spring cropping to then get your ultimate first wheat without needing to use too much chemistry to grow it.”

Cultivations are then used t o make sure he does not undo that good work as far as possible.

“I’ve found less is more when it comes to black-grass.”

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The reduced tillage cost

The slowly reducing rotational plougher JReliability of establishment is crucial for Stewart Cavers, who farms 760 hectares at Crosshall, Greenlaw, in the Scottish Borders.

With medium loam soils capable of averaging more than 10 tonnes per hectare of winter wheat, 5t/ha of oilseed rape and 8t/ha spring barley, but usually only one chance to put a crop in, reliability in his cultivation practices is high on his list of requirements.

Up until the turn of the century, that meant ploughing every field every year, but the advantages of using a deeper semi-inversion tillage system based on a disc/tine cultivator quickly became apparent.

“It gives a firmer seedbed, a better tilth, keeps the moisture in, all in one pass before drilling with a six-metre combination drill,” explains Mr Cavers. It also allows him to cover ground faster with reduced fuel usage and he’s seen improved slug control, particularly in oilseed rape.

“We’re finding we’re starting to min-till ahead of some spring crops more as well.

For example, it is a long time between ploughing in October or November to drilling vining peas in May or June and with Scottish winter rainfall, you risk erosion and losing a lot of nutrients and organic matter.

“It doesn’t feel right to be

20

On our ground you can plough and put a combination drill on top and know you’ll get a decent crop STEWART CAVERS leaving the soil bare that long, so anything going into peas we’re putting a cover crop of black oats and phacelia in, which is really helping improve organic matter and ticks the carbon footprint box.

“We also run sheep so we get some winter grazing after January. Yields of the peas last year where we cover cropped were noticeably better than in a field we ploughed and left.”

But the plough is far from being consigned to the weeds, being used ahead of both winter and spring barley crops.

It both helps from spreading the workload, especially ahead of spring drilling and for weed management.

“I think it’s important to have a clean canvas ahead of barley.”

Sterile brome is becoming more of an issue in places on-farm, so the plough helps keep that under control, he says.

It’s also a good fallback tool for when conditions change, such as later in autumn when it starts getting a bit sticky for the disc/tine cultivator.

“I wouldn’t want to be without it. On our ground you can plough and put a combination drill on top and know you’ll get a decent crop.”

He uses a semi-mounted seven-furrow Kuhn Vari-Leader, with slatted bodies.

“We went for those because they break the ground up a little better to give a bit more tilth than a mouldboard.”

The combination of plough and semi-inversion gives him the best flexibility to meet his aims of guaranteed good establishment, he says.

And with traffic across fields high with straw removed and cattle muck spread, he can’t see a time when shallower tillage will be employed.

“I think you’re better going a little bit deeper,” he adds.

JCost cutting was the initial driver for Chris Marchment to ditch the plough nearly 15 years ago on his 80-hectare farm at Andover, Hampshire.

His challenge is working clay-capped soils over chalk with one block having considerable flints and the costs of wearing metal and diesel had made ploughing an expensive establishment method.

The flint content of his soils also put him off direct drilling anything other than his winter beans. He’s also keen to make sure there’s good seed-to-soil contact, so he employs a reduced tillage system where he cultivates no more than the top 10cm of soil using a Kuhn Cultimer.

“It’s like it was almost built for me,” he says.

“It has transformed my cultivations.”

The Cultimer has three rows of staggered tines, a row of levelling discs and a

The grower who is JA commitment to a regenerative agriculture approach to farming with direct drilling as an important plank has helped Clive Bailye, growing combinable crops at scale near Lichfield, Staffordshire, halve his fixed cost structure since switching from a min-till approach in 2006.

He has a two-pronged approach to direct drilling on soils, which range from Wick series medium loams and sands over gravel on the home farm to soils with higher clay content on some of the contract land he also farms.

The bulk of the work is done by a 12-metre disc drill, which

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21/05/2021 13:42

de

The

In association with

age cost cutter

o is

rear roller. Mr Marchment uses front depth control wheels and wings on the tines to work the soil to 10cm depth.

He employs the Cultimer as soon as possible after harvest.

“It moves and mixes the chopped straw and stubble so well that most of the residue has disappeared when you get to drilling.”

Features Tungsten-tipped points on the tines and the double spring loaded non-stop mechanical break-back system are particularly useful features on his flint soils, as is its ease of set up and adjustment.

He has found the lower disturbance method has also helped with his weed control.

“It’s been a knock-on effect that it has been easier to control weeds. Effectively, it creates a stale seedbed, which we can let green up and then spray off before drilling.”

Not having to struggle with

black-grass, he aims to have winter wheat drilled by the first week of October.

Regime The move to a shallower tillage regime has seen improvements in his soils, he says, helped by starting to use mustard as a cover crop.

“The ground works 100% easier than it did when we were ploughing. Less is more,” he adds.

dedicated to direct drilling copes well with drilling direct into cover crops as well as having a high output.

But in wetter conditions – as the past two autumns have been to some degree – he also uses a farm-workshop-modified 6m tine drill in combination with a front hopper.

Challenging “In the last two years we have used that much more than we would usually plan to.”

Wet soils can make direct drilling challenging, he says.

“Even on our lighter soils it can be difficult to get the slot to close. The basics are important with no-till just like with any farming system – correct

The whole point of our system is that I don’t need the high outputs to maintain profitability CLIVE BAILYE drainage is more important than the brand of drill.”

With a lower fixed cost structure, plan B of spring cropping is much more palatable, he adds.

“The whole point of our system is that using less machinery, horsepower, fuel and labour means I don’t need the high outputs to maintain profitability.”

Change The change of approach has helped get on top of grassweed challenges, particularly sterile brome, that had been increasing under a previous deeper non-inversion approach, using a set of disc harrows and disc cultivator drill.

“No-till is not a silver bullet for grass-weeds. It helps because you’re keeping the problem on the surface where it is easier to treat rather than mixing it in the soil profile.

“But the thing that made the biggest difference in our system was the shift in rotation to more spring cropping, including later sown spring crops such as linseed and millet, which give any surface germinating grassweeds, such as brome, plenty of opportunity to germinate and be taken out by a glyphosate application.

“Having more crops in the rotation also means we’re using more modes of action – we’re not heavily relying on one or two groups of actives and a healthy rotation of actives should help avoid some of the resistance problems that can happen,” he says.

JUNE 2021 AF June p18 19 20 21 Great Cultivations Debate (Signed off) TR KH.indd 5

21 21/05/2021 13:42

FARMING SYSTEMS REGENERATIVE AGRICULTURE In the second of a series across five issues of Arable Farming looking at the pillars and practicalities of regenerative agriculture, Alice Dyer explores the hows and whys of getting started.

Making a start with agroecology

A

lthough there is no set definition of regenerative agriculture, it is generally broken down into five principles of soil health: leaving the soil undisturbed, covered and fed with living roots; diversity of rotations, mixes and roots; and livestock integration.

Niels Corfield, who advises farmers on regenerative farming

practices and runs courses on getting started in regenerative agriculture, says broadly speaking it is a set of outcomes which leaves the land in better ‘heart’ than when it was taken on. In arable scenarios, this should result in a physical change in the structure of the soil.

He says: “If you are not seeing that, generally speaking you’re probably not achieving those regenerative goals.”

Regenerative agriculture starts with the soil, but as improvements occur, crops’ water cycles, nutrient cycles, photosynthetic activity and resilience to stresses improve, and the landscape as a whole has better overall function.

“It’s a positive feedback loop you’re trying to set in motion.

It’s basically trying to hack nature,” says Mr Corfield.

In the field Max Chenery, Leicestershire JSince adopting regenerative agriculture practices on his farm, Leicestershire arable and beef farmer Max Chenery says changes to the condition of the soil have been easy to see.

“In the first year we did a worm count and the field that was direct drilled had five times more worms than cultivated fields. It’s not fast but you can start to see change straight away,” he says.

Mr Chenery’s journey started after joining the regenerative farming group BASE UK and, after speaking to other farmers, he realised despite his heavy clay soils, it was doable.

“I felt under pressure from the loss of the Single Farm Payment and knew we could make more money if we reduced cultivations and

potentially reduced artificial inputs, plus this way of farming is much better for the environment.”

He got hold of a cheap secondhand tine direct drill and has gradually direct drilled more fields each year – he is hoping that all 560 hectares of arable land will be direct drilled this autumn if conditions allow.

“Ten years ago, this farm was either ploughed, or had a deep cultivation in front of the combination drill. Then maybe six years ago we started doing an early cultivation straight after the combine and just pressing and drilling with a disc drill, using weather to break down the seedbed rather than a power harrow. Then we went to just trying to direct drill a few fields.

Since then, we’ve just done more and more.

Also in this section 28 34 46

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Concentrate on chemistry and cultural control Looking ahead to Arable Weed Week Figures to the fore for Cereals host

Max Chenery

“It’s not simple, and as we’ve transitioned the heavier land has been much harder.

Whereas the light land is easy and we got the same yields straight away. On the heavy clay with high magnesium content, until we’ve got more organic matter and it’s functioning more effectively, it’s difficult because there’s not enough air in the soil,” Mr Chenery says.

“Cutting down on inputs has also been harder than I thought

and I’ve realised it’s going to take time. I tried to jump the gun by just reducing fungicides before the soil was in better shape. If you have bad soil and just reduce your inputs, it doesn’t work.”

Applications As part of his aim to reduce fertiliser use by half over the next five years, Mr Chenery is trialling rhizobacteria applications, which interact with mycorrhizal fungi and help the plant to

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Regenerative farming practices lead to better overall function of the whole landscape, says Niels Corfield.

WRITTEN IN THE STARS What are the principles of regenerative agriculture? rDo not disturb the soil rEnsure the soil surface is kept covered rKeep living roots in the soil

access nutrients that are there but currently inaccessible.

The farm’s rotation of wheat, oilseed rape, barley, beans, rye, spelt and grass, has not needed to change a great deal. The grass for the farm’s beef herd adds important diversity to the rotation, but Mr Chenery says he is always on the lookout for another legume to add to the mix after struggling with peas and soya on his land.

Cover crops have also been a challenge, but Mr Chenery is confident that as soil health improves he will be able to do more in this area.

“Cover crops are a bit of a Catch 22 because we need to be fairly careful in that our soil isn’t great for spring crops because of the heavy clay. It will come though and hopefully as soil improves it will manage with spring cropping much better.”

Despite these challenges, Mr Chenery’s goal to reduce costs

rGrow a diverse range of crops rBring grazing animals back to the land Source: Groundswell

has been well and truly met, and without compromising yields.

“We haven’t seen a yield dip – there might be one at some point, but they are the same or better so far. In the second year our highest yield on the farm was direct drilled.

“Last year when it was terribly wet, we made a big mistake and in desperation we ploughed and power harrowed 150 acres of wheat, and the rest we direct drilled at the end of March. The yields on the direct drilled land were so much better and we’d spent nothing on it and hadn’t damaged the soil.

“Direct drilled spring crops have outperformed conventionally drilled winter crops and at a fraction of the price. Our gross margins have improved dramatically and if you go with book figures, you’re cutting out £100/ha of cultivations. If you get the same yield that makes a big difference.”

LG ASTRONOMER WINTER WHEAT

Agronomics and Quality you’ve been looking for @LGSeedsUK lgseeds.co.uk/lg-astronomer

Continues over the page.

JUNE 2021 AF June p22 23 24 26 Regen ag AD TR KH.indd 3

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Tel: 01472 371471 lgseeds.co.uk enquiries@limagrain.co.uk

21/05/2021 11:24

FARMING SYSTEMS REGENERATIVE AGRICULTURE Kickstarting the transition JAs a consultant, Niels Corfield advises farmers at the start of the transition to earmark one field for intensive, fast-track trials for at least three years to see how agroecological approaches work in practice on their farm.

“Choose a field that you’re not dependent on for your livelihood and go all-in.

“This is opposed to at farm scale, where we recommend people work with incremental changes such as a 10% reduction in nitrogen and substituting synthetic granular fertilisers for foliar applied nutrition. These are changes that can be made at farm scale, but for the more aggressive approach we’d suggest to most people just do it at field scale.”

Although it is not imperative to integrate all five principles, how headfirst the farmer chooses to be, and the condition of the land to start with, will influence how long improvements to the landscape take.

Mr Corfield says: “If you’re starting from a low base point it’s possible you might see quite significant changes. The better the land is, the slower the change. It will also depend on how all-in you want to go.

“No-till is a step up, with cover

crops another step up, but no-till with high diversity, spring-sown cover crops that grow through the warm part of the year are the ones that are a step change because we’re not limited to hardy plants or winter season soil conditions.

“Most people are on board with overwinter cover crops, but I would say that’s an incremental approach. They’re going in late, overwinter so there’s not a lot of activity in the soil because it’s so cold and the days are short. They’re more of a conservation strategy than a regeneration strategy.

“It’s about bringing as many of these practices together as much as you’re able to. Taking a year out of cropping is a big deal for a lot of people but there’s no question it massively ramps up biomass production, root growth, root exudation into the soil and aggregation created in the soil.

“For more marginal changes, looking to phase out and substitute synthetic nitrogen is really important, because so many of the issues we look at now are side effects of our fertility regimes.”

Even in veg crops, although eliminating cultivations may not be possible, there are ways their impact can be ‘massively

The speed at which change to the soil occurs depends on how 'all-in' the farmer is willing to go, says Niels Corfield.

reduced.’ The use of synthetic fertilisers and chemicals are a ‘low hanging fruit’ due to their effect on soil biology and plant health and should be viewed as a high priority target, Mr Corfield says.

Soil “In a potato crop there’s a lot of soil movement, so I would suggest making sure you apply a carbon source whenever you’re moving soil.

“Disease susceptibility is driven by nitrate presence in the plant and low brix. A healthier crop in a healthier soil will need fewer fungicide passes. Monitor sap pH and brix to find out why the plants are being infected. By taking that detailed approach to agronomy, the fact you’ve got to move some soil to harvest them

is probably okay in the grand scheme of things.”

While these marginal changes might sound relatively simple on paper, the biggest hurdle for growers is the knowledge gap, Mr Corfield adds.

“Regenerative agriculture is knowledge and information intensive, as opposed to input intensive. The main routes to delivery of regenerative practices at home are the ability to take on new information and assimilate that into your situation. But at the moment there is a knowledge gap. Most agronomy doesn’t extend to cultural practices and it is focused on inputs. If the operation is genuinely regenerative you won’t be dependent on inputs and a good amount of the ones you do use can be made on-farm.”

ELMs must be flexible enough for a new farming era JAlthough policy seems to be pushing farmers down the regenerative farming route, those seeking new opportunities should take the long view and weigh up all their options.

The National Trust and the Blenheim Estate in Oxfordshire both recently highlighted, when offering tenancies, that applications with a focus on carbon and soil health would be

24

favoured, showing a change of direction in the way large landowners are thinking.

Anthony Weston, CLM director and Groundswell consultant, says this is a sign of things to come and, if growers want to start ‘clawing back’ some of their Basic Payment Scheme through the Environmental Land Management scheme (ELMs), they will need to

start thinking about adopting practices that regenerate the landscape in a more meaningful way.

“Lots of stewardship measures in the past have been confined to field plots and corners, particularly in arable settings. However, there’s plenty of scope for having more imaginative mixes, more cover crops and doing more in terms of

introducing grazing. Basically, for thinking on a bigger scale.

Methods “If there’s to be a sizeable uptake though, the new scheme is going to have to be very flexible. Regenerative agriculture is a broad term – everyone has their own take on it and there are many different ways of doing it. The people doing it now are great

Continues over the page.

JUNE 2021

AF June p22 23 24 26 Regen ag AD TR KH.indd 4

21/05/2021 11:24

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SEEDING THE FUTURE SINCE 1856

19/05/2021 16:53

FARMING SYSTEMS REGENERATIVE AGRICULTURE ELMs must be flexible enough for a new farming era (continued from previous page) at coming up with and trying new methods.”

Eligibility problems for current schemes are already hampering the adoption of better practices, which is why flexibility must be integral to the new system.

Mr Weston has been involved with a number of ELMs test and trials, but is yet to be convinced that the next generation of policies will avoid the same issue of eligibility problems.

“There are already options in the current Countryside Stewardship scheme which are great for regenerative agriculture and soil health, such as overwinter cover crops. However, when you look at the detail, you get hit with eligibility criteria which say this option can only be

used in Nitrate Vulnerable Zones (NVZ). For farms sat on the edge of an NVZ, we’re stifled because we’re going to be rotating it around land that’s in and out of NVZs so we can’t include that option at all.

Anthony Weston

Choices “The GS4 herbal ley option has a really broad range of potential seed choices, such as deep-rooted plants and chicory which is great for grazing, but you can’t use it in a situation where there’s erosion or run-off risk, or where there are mapped historical features, despite archaeologists favouring a herbal ley because it’s direct drilled.

“The rules are not flexible and there’s no judgement

involved – Defra need some expert input, rather than the process just being formulaic and driven by a computer system.

“Agriculture is at a crossroads and plenty of

opportunities will be there for progressive farmers who wish to make sustainability even more integral to their thinking – potentially to the benefit of their farm businesses, the landscape and biodiversity.”

How does regenerative farming stack up financially?

JThe biggest ‘carrot’ for growers adopting regenerative agriculture practices will be the ability to reduce cost of production rather than increase yields, says Niels Corfield.

“We certainly won’t be seeing yield increases in the short term, but if we can see stable, cheap yields, which are achievable, then you can build a good business around that.”

According to analysis of

benchmarking data by Land Family Business (LFB), growers using regenerative agriculture practices produced a tonne of wheat for £23/t less than the average UK farm in 2019.

Members of the Groundswell benchmarking group, who predominantly farm under no-till regenerative systems, saw yields for winter wheat range between 7.1t per hectare to 10.5t/ha, with gross margins

Groundswell vs conventional yields in 2019 2019 yield (tonne/hectare) Winter wheat Oilseed rape Winter barley Output £/ha Variable costs £/ha Gross margin £/ha

Average no-till 8.74 3.14 9.12 865 380 485

Source: Groundswell/LFB

26

Average survey 9.19 3 6.84 1,169 497 672

of between £279/ha and £716/ha (see table).

The average winter wheat yield for more conventional systems in 2019 was 9.19t/ ha according to LFB’s benchmarking data for about 150 growers.

Yields Gary Markham, director of farms and estates at LFB, who usually presents the figures at the annual Groundswell event, says: “The high yields [in the Groundswell data] show it can be done. We have been [collating] these numbers over the last few years and variation within the group is getting smaller and yield is increasing.”

The data found that although labour costs are on average £30/ha higher within the Groundswell benchmarking group,

depreciation is almost £40/ha lower than the LFB benchmark.

Mr Markham adds: “Contracting costs had the biggest difference, with Groundswell farms averaging £17/ha and LFB farms averaging £133/ha.”

However, machinery costs remain ‘the elephant in the room’, Mr Markham says.

“The main driver of profit is machinery. LFB farmers have £900/ha tied up in machinery. Groundswell growers saved £249/ ha of working capital in comparison.”

On top of this, the Groundswell group’s average variable costs savings were £117/ha resulting in a total saving of £366/ha.

“On a 500ha farm, that is £183,000 of working capital that you do not need,” Mr Markham adds.

JUNE 2021

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UNITED, WE STAND AGAINST WEEDS. No matter how big the problem is, tackling it together gets the best results. And it’s no different with arable weeds.

That’s why, once again, BASF pledge our help and support.

We’re bringing farming, agronomic and scientific experts together to support you in the fight against weeds. So join us to access innovative thinking, virtual trials and the latest practical weed control advice.

Together we will shape the future of weed control, join us at basfrealresults.co.uk/awc © BASF 2021. All rights reserved.

AF_06_P27.indd 1 0836405 BASF SAWT_Press_297x210 V2.indd 1

19/05/2021 10/05/2021 16:56 13:20

POTATOES BLIGHT CONTROL With late blight strain patterns continuing to evolve, and the loss of mancozeb on the horizon, how should potato growers structure their disease control programmes? Martin Rickatson gathered some thoughts from the industry.

Concentrate on chemistry and cultural control

A

s growers face up to a reduced pool of available actives in their armoury against blight, with multisite mancozeb the latest loss, industry advisers from across independent research groups and the agchem and agronomy sectors are underlining the importance of integrated disease management, using cultural tools as well as chemical and careful selection across fungicide groups, in order to protect the efficacy of remaining chemistry.

AHDB research charting how close to their resistance ratings varieties are when under extreme blight pressure suggests there is a good deal of scope to select variety by land location and hence ease of spraying – and that there is significant benefit in growing varieties in blocks according to ratings.

That’s the view of David Wilson, AHDB knowledge exchange manager for potatoes, who points to trials presented

by AHDB at Eurofins in 2019, where spray programmes and resistance performance of some of the most popular varieties were assessed.

“This involved 12 varieties – including Russet Burbank, Maris Piper and Markies, with

28

Michael Tait

resistance scores from 2-9 against foliar blight – planted in two blocks in increasing order of resistance. The site was inoculated with 6_A1, 13_A2, 36_A2 and 37_A2 blight strains and while one block was treated with a strong fungicide programme, the other received a shorter, simpler spray regime.

Real differences “Under the full fungicide programme, all performed well, but when this was reduced to three applications of Dithane [mancozeb] and three of Curzate [cymoxanil + mancozeb], real differences were detected. Orchestra, rated 2 for foliar late blight resistance, showed 75% foliar infection, and Maris Piper, rated 4, the figure was 60%, while for

Markies, rated 5, just 15% of the foliage was infected.

“These trials highlighted how growers and agronomists can perhaps make more of selecting fields better to grow particular varieties, especially on rented land.”

He also suggested there was more potential to be had from growing varieties with similar blight ratings in blocks to aid spray programme planning and prioritisation in challenging circumstances.

“The demonstration trial highlighted the importance of foliar resistance ratings. Maris Piper is rated at 4 and Markies 5, yet when fungicide applications were reduced, on August 21 measurements showed Maris Piper with 60% defoliation, but Markies with just 15%.

“As these two are commonly grown on the same farm, this knowledge could help agronomists and growers make their decision on prioritising varieties – although field size and sprayer capacity will of course have an influence.”

Shifting UK blight populations have seen a decline in the prevalence of phenylamide-resistant 13_A2 and while mancozeb remains available then this means Fubol Gold (metalaxyl-M + mancozeb) retains a potential role in blight

With many current blight fungicides being single site-specific, there is a heightened risk of resistance development, warns Jeff Fieldsend.

programmes as a highly-systemic programme option, particularly during rapid canopy growth, says Michael Tait, Syngenta technical manager.

“However, be mindful of the need for resistance management to avoid resurgence in the 13_ A2 isolate. We would suggest its use be restricted to one full-rate application per crop and that growers consider bolstering with a further protectant blight active in the tank-mix.”

Craig Chisholm, field technical manager for potatoes and vegetables at Corteva, points out that analysis of UK growers’ samples submitted to the James Hutton Institute suggest late blight is becoming increasingly aggressive.

“The data shows 6_A1 and 36_A2 are dominant, with both widespread across all potatogrowing regions, underlining the importance of grower focus on interval and product choice.

JUNE 2021

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BLIGHT CONTROL POTATOES

SHINING BRIGHT IN ALL SITUATIONS

“It’s also interesting that 37_A2, which has reduced sensitivity to fluazinam, remained a stable presence in the 2020 survey. That suggests it’s fit enough to persist in the UK blight population.”

While there may initially appear to be a wealth of active ingredients to deploy against late blight, the reality is not quite so straightforward, adds Mr Chisholm.

“Resistance to metalaxyl and reduced sensitivity to fluazinam diminish the options available.

While the date of its withdrawal from the market is not yet confirmed, the situation will become further challenged by the coming loss of mancozeb, which of course is an important partner AI in a number of co-formulated fungicides.”

These developments underline the need for X

The data shows 6_A1 and 36_A2 are dominant, with both widespread across all potatogrowing regions

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POTATOES BLIGHT CONTROL growers to maintain an effective anti-resistance strategy by ensuring blight programmes use products from across the different chemical groups in accordance with FRAC guidelines, says Mr Chisholm.

Rapid growth phase “During the rapid growth phase, spray programme inclusion of Zorvec Endavia [oxathiapiprolin + benthiavalicarb], which combines preventative and curative activity with systemic movement through the plant, will help establish a clean start and protect new growth even on a 10-day interval.

Two Zorvec applications at rapid growth will save one spray at a busy time across the rotation, and two further applications can still be used in stable canopy, particularly valuable in indeterminate varieties or crops destined for storage.

“Option [cymoxanil] has always been a valued curative tank-mix partner for preventative AIs when blight is locally active, or warnings are strong/ threats high. In the event of mancozeb being unavailable to UK growers, it will be invaluable as a partner for single AI products as part of an anti-resistance strategy, with

Lessons from 17 years of blight data JSince AHDB’s ‘Fight against blight’ programme started in 2004, ‘blight scouts’ have sent in more than 10,000 samples of potentially blight-infested potato plants for genotyping.

During winter 2020/21 Peter Skelsey, David Cooke and colleagues from the James Hutton Institute did some additional analysis on the data from all 17 years of samples.

Here are some of their findings: rIn general the data was a good representation of the whole of the potato-growing area. There were some variations, with, for example, Herefordshire and the Scottish Borders showing a slightly lower

up to eight applications allowed across the programme.”

FMC’s Jeff Fieldsend agrees the withdrawal of mancozeb will force a rethink of disease control strategies.

“With fluazinam having been shown to offer poor control of EU Dark Green A2_37 following many seasons of excellent activity on the other dominant strains – particularly EU Blue A2_13 and EU Pink A1_6 – many growers chose to not use the product for late

Don’t focus on whether product A is better than product B, but rather on how to combine actives to minimise the increasing risk of resistance JEFF FIELDSEND

30

frequency of blight sampling in comparison to other areas with similar levels of commercial potato growing activity rThe data also allowed the spread of blight genotypes across the country to be tracked. The take-home message here is that new genotypes can spread rapidly across the country. Using EU_37_A2 as an example, a strain that is insensitive to fluazinam, in 2017 outbreaks were moving at 3.2km a week, in 2018 that rate increased to 13.8km a week rAs expected, the closer you are to an area where lots of potatoes are grown, the higher

the risk of a blight outbreak.

Ultimately, the risk of blight is high in all potato growing areas and the threat of spread into growing regions depends partly on risk in the neighbouring postcode districts rThe researchers also looked at the risk of an ‘early’ blight outbreak. There was an added level of complexity in this work due to the variation of growing progress from year to year.

Because of variable factors, such as time of emergence and weather conditions, it was difficult to find patterns in the data. In 2020 for example, the first samples of blight were found in Aberdeenshire

blight control, restricting it largely for minor use only on seed crops for powdery scab and sclerotinia.

“However, the late blight pathogen continues to evolve and mutate, with new strains shown to be more common and aggressive, particularly EU Salmon A2_36, which has shown to be increasing particularly in eastern England.

“This pattern and spread is often very difficult to predict and analysis of samples sent in for genotyping doesn’t always give an accurate picture of which genotype is dominant in a particular area and the best strategy to control any outbreak.”

EU_41, 42 and 43, and the fact we are about to lose one of our mainstay fungicides, it’s crucial to protect the remaining products available.

“We’ve seen in trials both in the UK and Holland that, as part of a robust alternating strategy combining actives in a well-managed spray programme, Tizca [fluazinam] can still deliver effective control of late blight, even when new strains have been introduced. In addition, there is good activity on alternaria and control of sclerotinia.

“Don’t focus on whether product A is better than product B, but rather on how to combine actives to minimise the increasing risk of resistance and tackle the loss of mancozeb.

“As an industry this will help deliver sustainable performance not just on late blight, but also on the other key diseases.

“Fluazinam is still one of the most effective actives for sclerotinia protection when timed at early flowering and repeated 14 days later and although it’s not often widespread every season this is a disease that can cause rapid defoliation,” he says.

Heightened risk Regardless of the increased aggressiveness and change in the behaviour of the pathogen itself, with many current blight fungicides being single site-specific, there is a heightened risk of resistance development, adds Mr Fieldsend.

“With these factors in mind, plus concerns over aggressive new genotypes detected on the near continent, including

JUNE 2021

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19/05/2021 30/04/2021 17:10 10:32

SPONSORED CONTENT

Finding a variety which combines good yields with impressive disease resistance challenge for wheat growers. But independent trials are showing RGT Saki is

RGT Saki will be a serious contender this coming autumn

G

rowers looking for a feed wheat for harvest 2022 should give serious consideration to RGT Saki, according to Chris Piggott, regional seed manager with Frontier.

He says: “Anyone considering a feed wheat should definitely look at RGT Saki and for those thinking about soft feed wheats it’s a no-brainer. Looking at feed wheats as a whole, RGT Saki stands out as being a nice well-rounded option.”

Dr Cathy Hooper, RAGT’s technical sales manager, says they have enough seed in the ground for RGT Saki to take 8-10% market share for harvest 2022 and current trials work will ensure growers have all the information they need to grow the variety.

RGT Saki made its debut at Cereals 2019 and has undergone extensive trials since then, providing an extensive data set.

Dr Hooper says: “RGT Saki has the unique combination of providing disease resistance and high yield. It used to be said that you could either fill the bucket with disease resistance or high yield, but you couldn’t have both. Well, RGT Saki provides both.

32

RGT Saki has the unique combination of providing disease resistance and high yield Dr Cathy Hooper “Furthermore, it provides consistently high yields whether treated or untreated. There are other varieties out there which provide good yields and disease resistance when untreated but are not so good when treated.

“The breeders have done a fantastic job in bringing together these traits of disease resistance and high yields. They have also done a really good job on specific weights. These have tended to be an issue with soft wheats in the past but RGT Saki has an excellent specific weight of 76. It has a good Hagberg Falling Number, grain quality and excellent sprouting resistance which can also be an issue with some soft wheats.”

This year, independent trials have been conducted by

Agrovista at Draughton, North Yorkshire; AICC in Sussex and Prime Agriculture, Norfolk; as well as RAGT’s own trials work. In all trials RGT Saki consistently delivered yields above the mean, whether treated or untreated. For instance, in Agrovista’s trial it yielded 12.3 tonnes per hectare untreated compared to a trial average of 10.55t/ha, and treated it gave 15.4t/ha compared to an average of 13.85t/ha.

In RAGT’s own trials in East Anglia it gave the highest yield of any of the first wheats tested and made a very respectable third place as a second wheat.

Parentage

Dr Hooper says: “Last year RGT Saki performed very well wherever we put it and it delivered the highest yields. It is very consistent, a trait which comes from its Santiago parentage, but with the addition of high disease resistance. Its disease resistance, including seedling yellow rust resistance, is second to none.

“We are now putting it back out to trial with Greencrop and Prime Agriculture and we are looking to obtain more detailed information including tillers

RGT Saki stood up well on Sam Morris’ Cambridgeshire farm. per plant, tillers per sq.m, ears per sq.m, grains per ear and plant height.

“As more commercial growers adopt RGT Saki, these detailed trials will allow us to provide guidance for them to get the best out of the variety. We hope to be able to organise some open days towards the end of June or the beginning of July to disseminate this information.”

The issue of RGT Saki’s maturity score is something both Dr Hooper and Mr Piggott commented on.

Dr Hooper says: “Some growers are concerned about its maturity score, but it can be drilled early and performs very well in this ‘early drill’ slot. It

JUNE 2021

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cr of

nce

SPONSORED CONTENT

credentials has long been a difficult offering growers just that.

RGT Saki in the field Cambridgeshire grower Sam Morris was an early adopter of RGT Saki, growing 15 hectares for harvest 2020.

Mr Morris, who farms in his own right as well as contracting, says: “We drilled a small amount of Saki in autumn 2019.

We have a particular issue with storage and we are looking to grow more soft wheats.

Although it was a small amount and a difficult year, I was impressed with it.

appears in the 2020 AHDB Recommended Lists Early Sown Trials and gave consistently good results.”

Mr Piggott says: “We definitely see a role for RGT Saki in that early drilled slot. This was something that stood out quite clearly to us because it has such a high early drilled yield. What is also interesting is that when it is sown later it develops more quickly through growth stages and therefore you won’t get a very late maturity. It is later maturing, but this is not as much of an issue as some may think.

“For early sowing it ticks all the boxes; it has really good disease resistance – particularly for septoria and rust – and it

has stiff straw. These are the main traits you would look for.”

Overall, Mr Piggott says Frontier’s experience of RGT Saki has been very positive with excellent yields.

“Our trials show the fungicide contribution to yield is relatively low with RGT Saki across most sites and this has been a consistent pattern. We see this as a key factor at the present time as it lowers the risk when you are making decisions about which varieties to grow.

“The reliability of disease resistance and the decreased reliance on key timed inputs are critical elements.”

Frontier had commercial availability of the variety in 2020 and sold it to growers

around the country, as well as putting it into its own trials programme.

“We grew it as far north as Coldstream in Scotland, as well as in Norfolk where we are trying to identify any issues with rust,” says Mr Piggott.

Positive

“The widespread use of RGT Saki across different regions is a reflection of its properties.

Those in the North can drill early with confidence. Those who don’t want to drill early will see really good yields and excellent disease resistance.

“It was the highest treated yielding variety at our Lincolnshire site. RGT Saki gave consistently high yields across

“It did well all season with vigorous growth. It’s difficult to judge on a small trial but it needed less fungicide and gives flexibility on spray timings. The yield was really good.

Difference “We have increased the area we are growing for harvest 2021 to around 80ha and I anticipate it will make a difference and enable us to reduce the need for spraying.” all sites from light sandy soils to quite heavy clay and this is also reflected in the AHDB data.

“When it came to looking at yellow rust, in our trials in Norfolk it performed as well as the most resistant varieties. Yellow rust is a big challenge for many growers and this is a particular strength of RGT Saki’s.

“We also saw a very good and consistent response to PGR across all our sites. Some varieties which appear taller don’t respond well to PGR, whereas RGT Saki responded very well.

If you are looking for a variety that you want to shorten and keep stiff, RGT Saki is worthy of consideration.

“Last year was a very challenging season all round with a dry period in spring, but RGT Saki actually performed incredibly well. Our expectation for those who have it in the ground for this year is that they will also have good crops, which is why we would recommend it for harvest 2022.”

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33 20/05/2021 14:37

PREVIEW ARABLE WEED WEEK Key information

The chance to connect with industry experts through a series of live events, debate and discussion, Arable Weed Week is showcasing the latest thinking and best practice on weed management.

Showcasing the latest thinking in weed management

T

aking place from June 14-18 in collaboration with The CropTec Show and Arable Farming, the event will bring together the best and brightest in the industry to tap into new thinking around weed control and ask: how exactly does it fit into new systems of farming?

Is it time to rethink in terms of weed ‘management’? Could new technologies and tools provide solutions to some of the most pressing weed control challenges?

Brought together through a

34 AF June p34 36 Weed Week TR KH.indd 2

In association with EVENT PARTNERS

rWhat: Arable Weed Week is a week-long interactive event focusing on the latest thinking and best practice on weed management in the context of the changing political and environmental agenda rWhen: June 14-18 rHow: Register your interest for all live content by visiting the Arable Weed Week online hub at croptecshow.com/aww rSocials: To keep up to date and get involved with the industry conversation and our weed-related poll questions, follow our social media platforms @CropTecShow @ArableFarming on Twitter and use #AWW21, as well as The CropTec Show Facebook page rOn-demand: All content, useful reader resources and a profile of our industry partners will be readily available to view on-demand at our dedicated online Arable Weed Week hub

Arable Weed Week action TECHNICAL SUPPORTER

EVENT SUPPORTER

series of activities in collaboration with industry partners, including BASF, Bayer, AminoA

and Horsch UK, the week-long event will kick-off with a host of interactive content.

JKicking off on June 14, the event will begin with a flurry of activity across social media, including Arable Weed Week content, interactive polls – which will continue to be held throughout the week – and culminating in a ‘Weed ID’ quiz, taking place on Twitter at 7pm.

Wrapping up the week on June 18, there will be various social media activities across all channels. Keep your eyes peeled for your chance to catch up on poll results and review the week’s exclusive series of interviews, debates and discussions with experts in the field and farmers on the ground.

JUNE 2021 21/05/2021 14:00

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Control grass-weeds in winter wheat and protect your yield, with the reassurance of a robust herbicide resistance management strategy.

Discover the Aclonifen Effect, visit cropscience.bayer.co.uk/aclonifen-effect Liberator contains flufenacet and diflufenican. Proclus contains aclonifen. Liberator and Proclus are registered Trade Marks of Bayer.

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AF_06_P35.indd 1 J007098_Liberator&Proclus_A4_AW.indd 1

21/05/2021 13/05/2021 14:12 12:42

AminoA’s tackling problematic weeds with the use of biostimulants

BASF’s interactive weed workshops June 15 JBASF will be running a series of virtual events throughout the day, kicking off at 8am.

Highlights include a resistance management masterclass with a stellar line up of experts and farmers on the ground, to investigate the valuable role of integrated pest management (IPM) in a grower’s weed control toolkit.

Plus, join BASF for an evening of first come, first serve beer tasting and an opportunity to connect with more than 40 farmers to discuss IPM weed

control success stories and gain valuable advice from the experts. r8-9am: IPM is not just a nice to do, it is a need to do Panel discussion With Rob Gladwin, head of technical for BASF, Mike Green, sustainability manager for BASF and Phil Jarvis, chair of the Voluntary Initiative. r11am-midday: A sustainable future for arable weed control Panel discussion With Steve Dennis, head of business development for BASF, Stuart Kevis, business

development manager for cereal herbicides for BASF and Yorkshire-based farmer Richard Hinchliffe r2-3pm: Resistance management masterclass Animated masterclass With BASF’s head of business development Steve Dennis r8pm: #IPMWeedControl with beer. This is a first come, first served beer tasting and success stories evening hosted by Ali Richards, campaign manager for BASF and joined by special guests

Bayer’s ‘new innovation’ exclusive weed webinar June 16 JBayer will be teaming up with NIAB to bring growers and agronomists the latest advice and insight into the UK status of ryegrass resistance, with a review of field trials and commercial experience with Proclus (aclonifen) at 800-hectare North Court Farm, near Faversham, Kent, where Sentry farm manager Ben Binder has been fighting a long-term battle with ryegrass.

Hear Ben’s experiences of combining cultural and chemical control approaches to tackle a long-standing ryegrass problem.

36 AF June p34 36 Weed Week TR KH.indd 3

Hear also how grower Sam Markillie is making use of Bayer’s latest herbicide developments to tackle black-grass on his 1,000ha arable unit in Wisbech, Cambridgeshire.

Leading weed biologist and NIAB expert John Cussans will set the scene behind mode of action diversity and provide an insight into using different modes of action to build a diverse herbicide programme and prevent resistance. r12-1pm: New innovation: Maximise long-term control

Webinar and live Q&A Experts will be on-hand throughout the webinar to answer questions and offer up technical know-how and practical solutions to weed-related challenges. r6:30pm: An evening with NIAB expert John Cussans Facebook Live John Cussans is set to join The CropTec Show’s Facebook Live event, where viewers will have the opportunity to put all weed management questions to the expert directly for an evening of in-depth discussion and debate.

JAminoA will be sharing the exciting work it is doing to help tackle problematic grass-weeds with its new biostimulant range.

Managing director Richard Phillips explains how a combination of late drilling of wheat in November and the use of biostimulants has helped to minimise blackgrass and other weed challenges, while boosting yields and reducing herbicide costs.

Crop it Like it’s Hot EXTRA: BASF weed control special June 17 JAlice Dyer, journalist by day, farmer by night, will be joined by a team of guest experts from BASF in this special weed control episode of Crop it Like it’s Hot to discuss a range of weed control topics and share some handy tips to implement on-farm. r12-1pm: Crop it Like it’s Hot EXTRA: BASF weed control special episode

JUNE 2021 21/05/2021 13:48

ARABLE WEED WEEK PREVIEW The alarming results of a new Rothamsted Research study have highlighted the urgent need to reduce reliance on herbicides and rethink weed control. Alice Dyer reports.

Why weeds are gaining an advantage

T

he use of herbicides has allowed commercial farming to reach new heights in productivity in the last 60 years, but it has also seen weeds become more competitive.

This was the conclusion made based on data from the world’s longest running experiment – the Rothamsted Broadbalk wheat trial in Hertfordshire – which revealed that crops are now more vulnerable to weeds than ever before and although yields have been steadily increasing, on plots where herbicides have not been used, losses to weeds have also escalated since the 1960s.

Dr Jonathan Storkey, plant ecologist at Rothamsted Research and lead author of the study, says these results demonstrate that weeds now represent a greater inherent threat to crop production than before the advent of herbicides.

The study showed that, in the absence of herbicides, less than a third of the harvest was lost to weeds in the first 10 years (1969-1979) of

Dr Jonathan Storkey

the dataset, but between 2005-2014, this had risen to more than half.

Dr Storkey says the results from the study suggest the effectiveness of herbicides has lulled the industry into a false sense of security when it comes to managing the impact of weeds.

“Because herbicides have been so effective, we’ve been able to control weeds really well for the past 30-40 years. But under the radar, the weeds have been gaining an advantage and, if the efficacy of herbicides continues to decline because of resistance, we would be in a worse situation now than before we had herbicides.”

The study suggests weeds present an unprecedented threat to food security, but whether that threat is realised depends on how herbicide use is sustained and how resistance is suppressed going forward.

Dr Storkey says: “There’s an argument that herbicides are a once-in-a-generation opportunity.

They’ve been a fantastic tool that has allowed us to realise these yield gains and we know from the experiment you can get up to 80% yield loss from weeds if you don’t control them with herbicides.

“However, we’re already seeing with black-grass that we’re losing the battle in terms of protecting herbicide active ingredients, with sulfonylureas the latest chemistry to start losing efficacy.

“They’re on a slippery slope, going the same way as fops and dims which are now of limited usefulness because of resistance. Herbicides are really important for protecting our yields, but we need to support them with integrated weed management techniques.”

This means growers should be X

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17/05/2021 19:49

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Breeding for better control

Weeds such as black-grass have benefited from the use of fertilisers as much as crops.

thinking more about diversified weed strategies including improving soil management and cultural weed controls, such as delayed drilling, more diverse rotations and short-term leys, to take the pressure off herbicides.

“We’ve got to work at making our systems more naturally resilient or competitive to weeds. It’s almost a hidden enemy that’s creeping up on us and as herbicides stop working, black-grass starts to win,” says Dr Storkey.

Best results In the Broadbalk experiment, delaying winter wheat drilling until the second week of October has continued to deliver the best results in terms of cultural weed control. In years where the crop was drilled later, up until the second week of

November, there was reduced weed competition and a clear benefit to delayed drilling. Beyond that date the benefits dropped off.

However, as well as causing weeds to become more resilient, the changing climate is threatening the ability to delay drilling, made evident this autumn when many growers chose to drill early, rather than risk not getting the crop in the ground at all.

Dr Storkey says: “Climate change is causing warmer winters and adverse weather events to occur more regularly and there is the risk of not being able to travel.

“The drilling windows are getting narrower and more unpredictable, so there’s an unwillingness to take the risk of delaying drilling because opportunities for getting on the land are getting tighter. You could argue if

JIn addition to the rise of herbicide resistance, the adoption of shorter crop varieties – favoured for putting more nutrients into the grain and not the stem – has also led to increased yield losses as the shorter crop is outcompeted by much taller weeds. This plant breeding was done under the assumption that pest, weed and disease control could be taken care of with chemistry, says Dr Storkey.

“Crops have been bred for high harvest index or thousand grain weight and what the study showed is that more modern cultivars are inherently less competitive against weeds, so if you take the herbicides away you don’t actually realise any of those yield advantages.

“You could argue, if we didn’t have herbicides, the direction of travel for crop breeding would have been different. We would have perhaps selected for traits that would have made our cultivars more naturally competitive against weeds. The Recommended List is based on yield and disease resistance.”

Going forward, this means

crop breeding will, at the very least, need to focus more on traits that allow the crop to thrive without the support of chemical crop protection or inorganic inputs, he says.

However, it has been found that varieties with the genetic make-up to compete against weeds tend to show a trade-off between those traits and traits that make a variety high yielding in weed-free situations.

you’ve got a reduced tillage system and a better soil structure then you have got more days you can travel in autumn and that might help you with weed control as well.

“We also looked at fallow period, so the equivalent of a good break crop or a two-year grass clover ley.

That was also very effective at reducing weed competition.”

Competitive Dr Storkey adds: “For example, a slightly taller cultivar is more competitive, but it has a lower harvest index. A cultivar with floppier leaves tends to shade out the weeds but the canopy is less efficient in capturing light in weed-free situations so there’s a trade-off.

“We did find some traits give you a win-win, which tended to be associated with the early growth phases. If you had a particularly vigorous cultivar early on which covered the ground quickly, it tended to be more competitive against weeds that didn’t have a yield penalty in weed-free situations.”

Fertilisers giving weeds a helping hand JIt is not just herbicides which are responsible for the evolution of more resilient weeds; the increased use of nitrogen fertilisers was also cited in the study.

Data analysis showed that weeds reduced wheat yields proportionally more on plots with higher rates of nitrogen fertiliser. On comparable plots where weeds were controlled

38

with chemicals, higher wheat yields were achieved when more nitrogen fertiliser was added – meaning herbicides are most beneficial on the highest yielding wheat fields.

Modern crop varieties with high fertiliser inputs are, therefore, more vulnerable to higher yield losses if herbicide resistance becomes a greater problem.

Dr Storkey says: “Blackgrass is one of the main weeds on the plots, but it’s more competitive and abundant in plots that have high nitrogen fertiliser.

Selection “This was another thing that we discovered had made weeds more competitive that was masked under the use of

herbicides. By adding fertilisers we’ve selected for more competitive weeds such as black-grass. These species also respond more to climate change.

“If you have mild autumns and winters, which is what we’ve been getting, the relative benefit between the weed and the crop shifts towards the weeds. The weeds benefit from climate change more than the crop.”

JUNE 2021

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21/05/2021 12:13

The increase in bur chervil (above) is a country-wide issue (left).

Grass-weed control has long been the focus, but a shift in management systems could pose a new challenge as different weeds come to the fore. Alice Dyer reports.

T

he battle against black-grass has been widely studied, documented and reported in the last decade, leading to many growers taking action and getting on top of the weed.

However, some of the changes made to cropping systems on the back of grassweed control are leading to

New generation of weeds emerging new problems emerging in arable fields.

This is according to John Cussans, weed biology specialist

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at NIAB, who says: “When you think back to where we were with black-grass in around 2012 it shows what can be done.

There are some spectacular success stories out there and a lot of people feel they have all the tools and knowledge to fight the weed now by using a range of approaches.

We’re now starting to see some umbelliferous weeds JOHN CUSSANS

Umbelliferous “However, we’re now starting to see some umbelliferous weeds that are particularly problematic.

I get the impression on soils that are more forgiving with less

rainfall, there’s more adoption of conversation ag, which is probably partly responsible for the increase in weeds like

Continues on pages 42-43.

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June 14-18

Shining a light on weed management, join us from June 14 to kick off a week long event of interactive content, masterclasses, insight and advice to provide you with invaluable technical know-how and practical solutions to boost your weed control toolkit.

June, 15 - Weed Workshop Tune in to watch a stellar line up of panellists showcase the valuable role of integrated pest management (IPM). With highlights including a resistance management masterclass, to taking a hard look at the challenges in launching and protecting chemistry for sustainable weed control, the day will offer up technical know-how and practical solutions.

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Also hear from leading weed biologists about how to maintain the long-term activity of herbicides.

Learn about the different modes of action, how to build a diverse programme and prevent resistance.

Alice Dyer, journalist by day, farmer by night, will be joined by a stellar line up of guest experts from BASF to discuss a range of weed control topics and offer growers a chance to gain handy tips to implement on farm.

Event partners Technical supporter:

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21/05/2021 12:02 07/05/2021 13:37:47

Seasonal outlook JDamp conditions last autumn meant herbicides generally went on in good conditions and grass-weeds have been well controlled.

However, the cold, dry spring has made herbicide timings in spring crops a challenge, Mr Cussans says.

“Normally we struggle with

hemlock, willow herb and bur chervil.”

Until a few years ago, bur chervil was an oddity, rarely seen in Britain’s arable fields, but growing concern over the weed caused Mr Cussans to explore it further. He says its increase represents the changes being made in arable systems, including fewer deep cultivations, growers dropping pre-ems in oilseed rape and the loss of cereal herbicides including IPU, trifluralin and flupyrsulfuron, which all once offered good control.

“All those small changes come together to give you this weed,” says Mr Cussans.

Sulphonylurea (SU) herbicides can deliver 100% control of bur chervil, but with only one mode of action available, there is a high risk of resistance

weed control in autumn and spring is the clean-up, but this year it’s different.

“The level of surviving weeds from autumn in most fields is pretty low. The challenge is going to be in these conditions where it’s cold, weed growth is stopstart. We need the weed to

developing, says Mr Cussans.

He has received more than 30 samples of bur chervil this spring, sent by growers from the Scottish Borders right down into the South West, and is aiming to explore differences between populations across the country, including sensitivity to SU herbicides.

Conundrum “The conundrum is bur chervil is an autumn-germinating weed and it comes up shortly after the crop. You can spend quite a lot of money on grass-weed herbicides but not get any control of it.

“Because bur chervil establishes as a seedling in autumn, by springtime it has been growing for months and is already quite big and well established, so you get really

We still want herbicide-based solutions, but we need more modes of action and less selection for resistance JOHN CUSSANS

42

be growing actively to get the herbicide to work.

Unsatisfactory control “For people using springdrilled cereals for grass-weed control, it’s been cold but also very dry, so pre-ems are just not going to be as effective and for mayweed, groundsel

variable control. Getting perfect herbicide application conditions is also much harder in spring compared to autumn.

“Our focus is to look at the autumn and see if there’s something relatively inexpensive that we can add into the programme there to make the spring application timing less hit and miss.”

Fat hen is another spring weed which seemed particularly prevalent last year after many farms were forced into spring drilling.

“Fat hen is a classic spring-germinating weed. The more we use spring crops to combat grass-weeds, the more we’re going to see things like bindweed, persicaria and fat hen come in, which I suspect a lot of arable farmers have not seen before. There are new weeds too like rat’s tail fescue, which has recently become an established arable weed and is certainly on the rise now. Not everything is black-grass anymore.”

As well as the new weeds coming to the fore, Mr Cussans warns growers not to take their eye off ‘older weeds’ such as wild oats, bromes and perhaps of most concern, Italian ryegrass.

While all of this presents arable farmers with new challenges, there are also benefits to be had in terms of weed diversity promoted by regenerative systems.

and fat hen we’ll see a lot of unsatisfactory control.”

The crops themselves have also been adding to the hit and miss spring, with some patchiness and open ground as a result of the cold spells resulting in late germination of weeds in places and poor weed suppression.

“Regenerative agriculture presents really positive potential impacts on traditional problems that stem from loads of cultivations, autumndominated crops and bare ground.

“We’re not talking about black-grass’ existential threat to crop production now being replaced by bur chervil. It hopefully will no longer be the case that one weed is a threat to sustainability. There will be more diverse weed flora; we probably won’t see one weed [black-grass] dominating like we have before, which is a positive thing.”

Knowledge base This situation will require a much bigger knowledge base to combat these new weed challenges and their life cycles, meaning farmers and agronomists may have to ‘relearn’ what they have been previously taught about spring-emerging weeds and their management, Mr Cussans says.

“Just as we’re going to have diverse weed problems, we want diverse solutions. We still want herbicide-based solutions, but we need more modes of action and less selection for resistance. We want people to understand how their cultural controls impact on different weeds and the importance of using a diverse set of cultural approaches.

“It’s a real boom time in terms

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WEED WEEK ARABLE

Serious concerns over growing flufenacet resistance Declining sensitivity in ryegrass and black-grass to flufenacet is the first evidence of resistance in a pre-emergence herbicide.

of people rethinking weed management and new technology, such as spot spraying, precision inter-row mechanical weeding and seed capture helps to give us a diverse set of tools.

“However, the reality is non-chemical control is the same as chemical control in that some things will work really well on certain weeds but won’t work at all on other weeds. Just like herbicides, one solution is never going to be a panacea.”

JResistance to post-em, contact acting herbicides is widely documented, but it is the discovery of reduced sensitivity in black-grass and ryegrass to flufenacet that is the latest cause for concern, because it is the first evidence of resistance in a pre-em.

Mr Cussans says: “This is not a case of ‘just another active with resistance’. The change from only impacting post-em contact herbicides to starting to see it in a pre-em herbicide is quite a fundamental change because up until now we’ve been getting around resistance in post-ems by boosting our upfront weed control. Using more pre-ems has, to some

Resistance to pre-ems should be much harder to select for as we tend to use mixtures and follow up with a post-em JOHN CUSSANS extent compensated for a lack of activity from ALS and ACCase herbicides.”

Currently, the issue with flufenacet is most acute in Italian ryegrass, where in some

populations the active will now no longer control the weed at the field rate. In black-grass, resistance has not progressed as quickly, but reduced sensitivity has been seen.

Mr Cussans adds: “Resistance to pre-ems should be much harder to select for as we tend to use mixtures and follow up on any surviving weeds with a post-em.

“If you try hard enough you can get resistance to anything and with flufenacet, the price has dropped; it is being used straight or mixed with something ineffective and when it started being made available straight, it became like DFF where you just add it in. That’s not sustainable use of a herbicide.”

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SPONSORED CONTENT

Championing oilsee Only winter oilseed rape hybrids are grown at McGregor Farms in the Scottish Borders, where they grow 700 hectares of the crop.

T

he vigour and traits which hybrids offer combine to produce a consistently high gross output which, according to Tom Hoggan, graduate trainee manager at the business, has secured their place in the rotation indefinitely.

He says: “We see hybrid seed as an investment. If you are putting good quality hybrid seed in the ground, you are giving yourself a really good chance of getting that crop up and away and looking well through winter – a much better chance than if it were conventional seed.”

Enhanced vigour is the primary reason for their choice of hybrids.

Mr Hoggan says: “Autumns are often quite wet here and a large percentage of our oilseed rape area is drilled from August 20 onwards, into September, after wheat because we don’t grow much winter barley. You can get away with drilling hybrids slightly later than you would conventional varieties because of their vigour. We want the crop to be up and away before our main pest, slugs, cause problems.”

Cabbage stem flea beetle (CSFB) has not been an issue on McGregor Farms as yet.

Establishment is done by a

Making a hybrid A HYBRID is obtained by crossing two pure parental lines which are considered genetically distant. The resulting seeds, F1 hybrid seeds, are generally more vigorous and productive than the initial parents. This hybrid vigour is called heterosis.

A conventional seed variety, also called an open-pollinated variety, is developed by combining plant crossings with a succession of self-pollinations and selecting steps.

The results are the so-called pure line varieties of oilseed rape.

one-pass system and surface trash provides the ideal environment for slugs.

Mr Hoggan says: “Growing hybrids definitely ensures the crop marches on and grows away from slugs.”

Traits It is not only the hybrid vigour which is greatly valued by Mr Hoggan, the traits hybrids exhibit are also important.

“When choosing a variety, oil content is of primary consideration along with pod shatter

Tom Hoggan is graduate trainee arable manager at McGregor Farms, Scottish Borders.

resistance and disease resistance. We deploy clubroot-resistant hybrids where the effects of this soil-borne pathogen have been seen.”

One of the hybrids grown at McGregor Farms, BASF’s early maturing InVigor® 1035 (InV1035), has pod shatter resistance, excellent disease resistance and verticillium wilt

tolerance, as well as some of the best oil contents available.

Mr Hoggan says: “We grow oilseed rape for gross output rather than just seed yield, so it is important to try and get the premium for the oil content.”

Achieving a five-year average yield of 4.9 tonnes per hectare, Mr Hoggan adds: “We just try and do the basics right and if

A word from the sponsor WE are on a mission to champion OSR. Together with UK growers, industry experts, scientists and agronomists, we are going to unlock the full potential of this profitable crop.

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in our promising innovation pipeline.

But we also understand true success requires a holistic approach and chemistry can only be one part of it.

That s why the BASF Real Results Circle gets involved.

Through facilitating

professional and practical knowledge exchange, BASF is going to strengthen UK growers confidence in growing

OSR and help maximise profitability to give OSR the attention it deserves.

From now on we will Champion OSR Together. >>To find out more about the BASF OSR initiative, visit agricentre.basf.co.uk/ en/Real-Results-Circle

JUNE 2021

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SPONSORED CONTENT

eed rape Breeding technology is driving developments

you are putting good hybrid seed in the ground then you are giving yourself a better chance of consistently achieving high yields, a much greater chance than you would sowing conventional varieties.”

David Leaper, Agrii seed technical specialist, says: “InV1035 has been our biggest selling variety over the last few years because of its growth characteristics. It excels in challenging establishment conditions and has very vigorous growth over the three months up to Christmas.

Resilience “By building the canopy and creating a big plant you are building resilience into your crop and potentially saving money. We know oilseed rape has an optimum green area index and if you can build the canopy before Christmas, you’re reducing the need to apply as much fertiliser in spring.”

Research over the last five years has shown that a big

DIRK Decherf, BASF European breeding manager for oilseed rape, says: Breeding a hybrid starts with the creation and selection of parental lines.

The combining ability of these parental lines is evaluated in test hybrid combinations where we measure yield and vigour to obtain the highest yielding hybrids.

As breeders, we want to deliver a yield increase and yield stability while balancing this with the transfer of genetic information which delivers the traits which are of interest to the grower.

For certain traits, such as clubroot and phoma resistance and pod shatter reduction, it is sufficient to have the trait in only one parent to obtain the trait in the hybrid.

For the UK, resistance to diseases such as light leaf spot, phoma and turnip yellows virus (TuYV) are critical. The recent introduction of the trait which confers TuYV resistance to hybrid varieties, a virus which is endemic across the whole of the UK, delivers 7-10% more yield alone.

canopy, a big root collar size and a more robust plant in autumn provide more resilience against CSFB. Mr Leaper adds: “We have seen massive strides forward in oilseed rape breeding and the quality of varieties now is a step apart from what we used to grow. It is noticeable that the number of breeders who breed conventional varieties has dwin-

Dirk Decherf Mr Decherf says: Looking ahead, our BASF InVigor® breeding programme continues to stack different traits into our elite parental lines.

In the spring and winter oilseed rape pipeline ‒ especially for CIS and Eastern European countries there are hybrids which combine the Clearfield® trait with our patented pod shatter reduction trait and improved TuYV, clubroot and phoma resistance in the winter hybrids. Thinking specifically of the UK pipeline, we have a winter hybrid with the

dled, with some companies, such as BASF, exclusively breeding hybrids.

“Plant breeding is giving us varieties with more resilience and the ability to cope with extremes which will certainly be experienced in the future.”

Mr Leaper acknowledges that in the short term, there are issues with regard to the area grown because of CSFB.

Clearfield® and clubroot traits, phoma resistance and pod shatter currently in registration trials.

Techniques, such as the use of genetic markers and predictive breeding, have transformed the breeding process over the last 20 years and there has been a phenomenal success rate in the introduction of genetic traits, allowing hybrids to reach growers faster than in the past. However, breeders need to be anticipating and working on what the growers needs for the crop will be in 10 years time.

Quality

For example, breeding for potential climate change impacts,drought tolerance, future sustainability requirements, nitrogen efficiency, protein quality and insect resistance in the OSR crop are all in progress.

The outcome of the current UK consultation around the technologies which fall under the umbrella of genetic modification, such as gene editing, will dictate the future speed of progress.

“However, the future is positive because oilseed rape produces a very healthy oil and has a good fit within UK arable rotations.”

Find out more FOR more on this project, visit the hub at fginsight. com/ChampionOSR

JUNE 2021 AF June p44 45 BASF OSR (Signed off) KH TR.indd 3

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CEREALS 2021 PREVIEW

The Cereals event is returning to the fields of Lincolnshire for 2021, bringing its mix of crop plots, seminars and more.

This year, the Cereals event returns to its regular Lincolnshire site. Host farmer Alastair Prie into his working life, hosting such a large event and his goals for the future.

Figures to fore for Cere al

A

lastair Priestley grew up less than 20 miles from East Mere Farm, Lincolnshire, where he is now managing director at Patrick Dean Farms and Aubourn Farming. He studied agriculture at Newcastle University and took accountancy qualifications afterwards.

He says: “It might not be the normal course. But I wouldn’t have this job if I hadn’t have done accountancy.

Important “Looking back now, it’s the best thing I could have done. And as much as I like being in the field farming, the figures are as important as the farming.”

Also in this section 52 74

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Seminar and theatre event timetables Machinery goes live at Cereals 2021

Essential event information rWhen: June 30–July 1 rWhere: The Old Rocket Site, Heath Road, Boothby Graffoe, Lincolnshire, LN5 0AS (Turn off your sat nav once you see the Cereals signage)

rTickets: For tickets go to cerealsevent.co.uk rParking: Car parks open at 6am. Gates open at 7:30am when caterers open for breakfast. Stands and features open at 8am

Patrick Dean Farms has grown significantly since he started 15 years ago and now has an increased cropping area.

The operation has 30 staff and has recently taken a major stake in Aubourn Farming which farms 3,237 hectares.

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PREVIEW CEREALS 2021 Exhibitor crop plots JThe crop plots offer the chance to review new varieties and practices from a wide range of exhibitors.

For 2021, NIAB has focused on its agronomy demonstration area, including plots showcasing fungicide inputs versus yield in winter wheat, new cereal fungicides, advice on grass-weed control and trials work on soil amendments.

There is also a spotlight on NIAB’s plant pathology expertise with the latest developments on yellow rust and field pathogenomics with the UK Cereal Pathogen Virulence Survey team and the

RustWatch project, alongside advice and support in disease diagnostics.

NIAB technical director Bill Clark says: “Our untreated winter wheat variety demo plots are always a top attraction at Cereals, giving growers a head start on their variety selection for next season, with differences in disease resistance and performance between the varieties clearly evident.”

And for those visitors who would prefer a virtual visit again this summer, NIAB will be providing online plot tours featuring NIAB specialists and advisers direct from the show plots.

astair Priestley provides an insight

e als host Together they run a Case Quadtrac, Cat Challenger, an eight-metre Vaderstad drill, two 36m Bateman sprayers, two Fastracs, six John Deere tractors and a Fendt 942.

Soil The enterprise grows an extensive range of crops (see Cereals host farm cropping panel on page 49). The soil varies from easy working, light limestone heath land and a more bodied, heavier type in the Witham valley.

Variety is what Mr Priestley enjoys most about farming.

“No day is ever the same and

X JUNE 2021

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47 21/05/2021 13:09

CEREALS 2021 PREVIEW I love working in the countryside.”

So how did he come to host the Cereals event?

“We’re very fortunate that the site lends itself to the event. It’s free draining with good access and a concrete perimeter track all around it, so everyone can get on and off. We don’t own much of the perimeter track but are able to collaborate with other local farmers who own the rest of it to enable the event to happen,” he says.

It’s good to get out there, exchange ideas and learn what others are doing and why

Hosting “We’ve been hosting it since 2011 and we like hosting the event; it’s great to have demonstrations on our farm as, ultimately, we all want to see how a piece of kit works on our own land.”

The site is kept in a rotation of wheat and grass and once the wheat has been harvested it is ploughed and put into grass.

However, the trial plot area is continually managed by organiser Comexposium’s partners.

After the event, Comexposium organises leaving the site clean and tidy, so it should be ready for Mr Priestley to drill the next wheat crop.

This year, in particular, the big draw of the event will be for farmers to get off their own land

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48

and meet other people after lockdown, says Mr Priestley.

“It’s good to get out there, exchange ideas and learn what others are doing and why they are doing it. The networking is personally why I like to go.

“When wandering around an event, subconsciously you’re taking things on board through chatting to people – you pick up ideas far more than you realise.”

Mr Priestley’s next focus is to expand the contracting side of the business to reduce overheads and to drive down costs of production to mitigate the gradual phasing out of Basic Payments.

“We are looking at what to do next and want to grow our client base by continually adopting new and innovative technologies,” he adds.

Getting to Cereals 2021 rBy car from the North Travel southbound on the A607. Turn left onto Heath Road and then right onto the signed farm drive that leads to the event site rBy car from the South/ East/West Travel northbound on the A15, past the B1202 following exhibitor signage and turn left onto Heath Road. Turn left again onto the signed farm drive which leads to the event site rBy train There are three local train stations within a suitable

driving distance to the Cereals 2021 site: Metheringham, Hykeham and Lincoln rBy air The following airports are closest to the Cereals 2021 site: Waddington Airport, Cranwell Airport, Barkston Heath Airport.

Other UK airports include: Robin Hood Doncaster Sheffield Airport, East Midlands Airport, RAF Lakenheath, RAF Mildenhall, Birmingham International Airport, Leeds Bradford Airport

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NIAB Soil Pit JThe NIAB Soil Pit is designed to show farmers what goes on below ground level and how to tackle some of the most important soil issues.

The 20-metre long, 1.5m deep pit will provide a worm’s eye view of roots and soil structure, providing a unique opportunity to explore the foundations of a farming system and discover the impact

of different cropping options on soil structure. Visitors will also have the chance to hear from

experts in the field who will be discussing some of the biggest issues facing farmers today.

NAAC Land Drainage Hub Cereals host farm cropping r1,416 hectares of winter wheat r405ha sugar beet r304ha spring barley r283ha potatoes r275ha poppy seeds for the culinary market r121ha beans r121ha oats r41ha peas r41ha of oilseed rape rIn addition, there are areas of fallow, in stewardship and rented out

JGood drainage ensures aeration, prevents erosion, assists soil structure integrity, promotes root development and can extend the growing season.

The NAAC Land Drainage Hub, a new feature at Cereals

2021, will bring together leading agricultural contractors with land drainage expertise as well as drainage equipment manufacturers to help arable farmers get the most from their land.

The hub will include

presentations throughout both days and is complemented by information presented at the NIAB Soil Pit on both days and the Sustainable Solutions Theatre in association with the National Federation of Young Farmers’ Clubs on day two.

exhibitors and complete their paperless activity. Then follow the NRoSO CPD trail.

Earn up to six BASIS points by successfully completing this year’s knowledge trail.

Collect a knowledge trail card from the BASIS stand.

Answer the questions posed by exhibitors and get the card stamped, returning it to BASIS for points.

Earn CPD points rTo earn up to six NRoSO continuing professional development (CPD) points, you will need to register for Cereals 2021. Once on-site, stop by the participating

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Venue: National Conference Centre, Birmingham | Date: Thursday, October 21

ARABLE INNOVATOR OF THE YEAR A passion for farming and embracing opportunities, whether that be to acquire land or develop learning, characterise last year’s winner of the Arable Innovator of the Year category in the British Farming Awards. Marianne Curtis reports.

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eginning with a 45-hectare holding, Richard Anthony along with his wife, Lynwen, now run a diverse and profitable arable enterprise operating across 1,200 hectares.

Livestock and renewable energy systems are integrated in the business which also offers contracting services, and has a primary focus on soil health.

The couple’s son, David, returned to the farm after graduating from Harper Adams University and now runs the contracting side of the business, including the forage harvesting, baling and tanker digestate spreading

operation for the home farm and others in the local area.

R. and L. Anthony, which is based at Tythegston Farm in the Vale of Glamorgan, Wales, includes owned, tenanted and contract-farmed land.

“I always wanted to farm and took every opportunity when it came along,” says Richard. “I thoroughly enjoy farming and always tried to do that little bit extra which opened doors as people such as land agents and landlords could see what we were doing.

“We always try to give back to the land – our soil organic matter levels

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We have always been very open about what we’re doing not just for our benefit but for other farmers as well Richard Anthony are very good and it is remarkable how good our carbon footprint is.”

Sustainability Positioning the business to respond to the increased focus on environmental sustainability has been an important goal for Richard.

“We have always farmed with a balanced approach pushing the boundaries of what is possible in terms of production, but also how this can be achieved with minimal impact, if any, on the environment,” he explains.

“The main cultivation system is minimum or no-till, with no ground left bare,” he says. “We use cover crops to reduce soil run off and condition our soils, increasing the diversity and biology in our soils, retaining nutrients and making them more resilient to wet winters.”

Between grass, maize and wholecrop, 25,000 to 30,000 tonnes of forage is produced annually, mostly clamped, and sold all-year- round to about 12 dairy farms, supplying a steady income, with a small amount going to a neighbouring AD plant.

Often three crops are grown in two years.

The cereal crops are usually cut at high moisture contents, dried using a biomass boiler and marketed throughout the year.

Drying with biomass means that early harvest at higher moistures in a high rainfall area is justified so that in-field losses are reduced. About 2,000-2,500t of wheat is rolled and sold for dairy blends.

“We use digestate as our main form of fertiliser, produced by a local food waste AD plant,” says Richard.

“Accurate spreading of digestate and other organic manures dramatically reduces our inorganic fertiliser dependency, reduces costs, increases organic matter and reduces our carbon footprint.

“We have installed satellite digestate lagoons – with further planned – to ensure the material is close to the crop for when needed.

“The sheep flock is a key part of our business, helping us to maintain our grassland and provides an additional income stream.”

Trials Richard is keen to trial new approaches to arable agronomy and

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CATEGORY SPONSORED BY TYTHEGSTON FARM • 40ha owned • 906ha rented • 265ha contract farmed • The farm employs arable manager Dan Moore and the business is supported by five full-time staff along with parttime seasonal workers • Cropping: 440ha winter wheat, 153ha OSR, 310ha maize, 30ha barley, 278ha grassland • Livestock: 800 breeding ewes to share and collaborate with people across the industry.

“I like to look at other things. A lot of what we do initially doesn’t work but you need to be willing to do that. In a lot of areas we have moved forward such as companion cropping with oilseed rape.”

A companion crop of spring beans, vetch and buckwheat helps to reduce crop loss to cabbage stem flea beetle, the legumes fix nitrogen and the buckwheat mines phosphate, leaving a P bank that can be taken up by the oilseed rape with a potential yield benefit of up to 0.4t/ha.

“We have some of the best OSR we’ve ever grown this year and this has only come about through trial and error.”

As well as companion cropping, he hosts a series of different crop trials including fungicide, variety and herbicide plots with NIAB, plant breeders and Agrii. Other trials include variable seed rates, different drilling techniques, companion cropping and under-sowing maize. Numerous open days are held throughout the year in normal circumstances.

Shared knowledge He also aims to visit and learn from other farms, an activity which has been curtailed by the pandemic. Such visits help him tackle challenges faced by the business, he says.

One challenge is the potential introduction of a blanket Nitrate Vulnerable Zone (NVZ) in Wales which could reduce the amount and restrict the timing of nitrogen fertiliser and digestate applications.

“We have been talking to politicians to try to explain some of the unintended consequences if NVZs cover the whole of Wales and explaining the benefits of the system we run, applying only when the crop requires the nutrients.

“We have been trialling different products to increase efficiency of

Richard Anthony nitrogen applied and have invested in storage infrastructure and equipment on the farm.”

Bans on pesticides are also a concern and Richard is looking at biological, cultural and varietal solutions instead to try to reduce the farm’s dependency on conventional chemicals and artificial fertiliser. To address the loss of BPS support payments and possible lower farmgate prices because of Brexit, he is trying to increase efficiency and use poorer areas of the farm to enhance environmental payments.

Looking ahead, he has an eye on new opportunities.

“We are looking at drying grass and at alternative crops.

“We are doing a project this year in conjunction with Agrii trialling new proteins crops – haricot beans, chickpeas and white lupins. There is lot of controversy over soya being imported into the country and in my opinion growing soya in the UK is not a viable option at present, so we are keen to look at other crop options.

“We are also looking at increasing our direct drilling area and cutting tillage, but this has proven challenging due to our rotation and forage crops.”

Richard says he is very proud to have won the Arable Innovator of the Year category in the British Farming Awards which also recognises the wider team effort and Lynwen who is very much part of the business too.

“It shows we can grow crops in Wales. We have always been very open about what we’re doing not just for our

benefit but for other farmers as well.

The award has opened doors and hopefully it will open a lot more.

“People don’t see the value of farming for soil management, wildlife, soil erosion and carbon. It’s incredible, the more I learn about soils, the more I realise how little I know and it’s so inspiring to see some of the results.”

WHO CAN ENTER? XWhether you are a large-scale arable unit or a smaller-run family farm, high-tech or committed to a more low-tech approach, you enjoy challenging conventional thinking.

Maybe you are adopting specific practices to reduce your carbon footprint or are looking to better tailor inputs, or developing an integrated pest management approach?

Perhaps you have introduced new approaches to crop establishment, agronomy, harvesting or storage or are pushing your yields to new levels? You may have identified new markets to future proof your business and limit the negative

impacts of commodity price fluctuations.

Exploring new possibilities, you will be shaping your business now and for the future.

We understand agricultural businesses were affected by Covid-19 and many farmers faced challenges to address the pandemic. This will not impact on your application and all related achievements and opportunities which arose as a result will still be considered.

ENTER OR NOMINATE To enter or nominate an individual who deserves to be recognised for their work in the arable sector, visit britishfarmingawards.co.uk

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CEREALS 2021 PREVIEW

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his year’s seminars explore ways farmers are addressing challenges to deliver greater natural and economic benefits to their businesses and how businesses can produce quality food while protecting and enhancing the environment.

AHDB Theatre – Day one

Seminar timetables

Sustainable Solutions seminars in association with the National Federation of Young Farmers’ Clubs Tomorrow’s Solutions for Today’s Challenges 8.50-9am Welcome and introduction by Nicholas Saphir, AHDB chairman 9-9.50am The triple bottom line NOW is the time to review your business and costs to adapt to the changing economic and environmental climate. George Badger, partner at Ceres Rural, looks at where arable businesses can adapt to the new challenges and opportunities.

Allerton Project Farms director Phil Jarvis sums up the approach the 800-hectare arable business is taking to deliver a healthy bottom line as farming subsidies shrink.

A motivated and skilled team and the use of robust science and technology complement Poul Hoveson’s regenerative approach across more than 5,000ha of highly productive cropping in Norfolk and Poland.

10-10.50am A climate of change NFU president Minette Batters believes UK farming can lead climate-resilient food production. She examines the road to achieve net zero by 2040 – and what economic opportunities and challenges lie on that journey.

Clare Bend, head of technical at Agrii, looks at how traditional distributors of agrochemicals can help farmers to deliver low carbon methods of food production.

Thomas Gent used lockdown to explore the value of carbon on his father’s 800ha farm in South Lincolnshire.

He’s created Gentle Farming – a group of farmers aiming to reverse the impact of climate change and create a new income stream through premium carbon credits.

11-11.50am Collaborative farming COUSINS Will and Charlie Cheyney farm in Hampshire and say there have been numerous rewards to having a mentor through the Henry Plumb Foundation, giving them confidence to try systems that work with nature and maximise productivity.

Having spent the past few years regenerating soil health and biodiversity, Tim May now has six enterprising partners that are helping to grow and shape the future of Kingsclere Estate.

A great believer in joint ventures, Antony Pearce provides a unique insight on what works and what doesn’t – and the benefits of sharing capital and input costs on his Oxfordshire arable business.

Midday-12.50pm Monitor farm debate: Farming towards net zero 1-1.50pm Variety choice: The full picture REGIONAL variations in wheat variety performance throughout the season are just as important as the national picture. This year, AHDB, alongside NIAB, will be providing video evidence of

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regional variations of all the wheat groups in tandem with national trial results. NIAB’s Bill Clark talks to colleagues around the country to reveal the winners and losers in the regions.

2pm-2.50pm Quick fire technical sessions THIS session focuses on finding new ways to better manage pest and disease and reduce conventional pesticide usage.

Could conventional synthetic pesticides be replaced by biopesticides such as fungi, bacteria, nematodes and plant extracts? Dr Belinda Luke, CABI team leader, talks about her work to find an alternative to neonicotinoids to control cabbage stem flea beetle.

Neil Havis, of SRUC, is investigating the impact of applying ‘natural elicitors’ such as those derived from seaweed to boost the natural disease resistance of crop plants. These natural sprays are ready to play a key role in integrated pest management strategies to reduce pesticide usage.

Prof Wendy Harwood, John Innes Centre (JIC), asks what the impact is of the UK’s stance on gene editing following the recent Government consultation? In 2020, JIC scientists identified the gene that makes wheat and barley susceptible to mildew – editing out that gene is a quick route to creating resistant varieties.

3-3.50pm Synergistic solutions A MIXED farming system offers additional benefits and income streams and for many businesses it provides an overall net benefit that surpasses the sum of the two parts. This session explores the value agroforestry, livestock and bioenergy can bring to arable businesses.

Helen Chesshire, senior adviser at the Woodland Trust, reviews the numerous benefits of agroforestry on arable farms, the grants available to support inter-tree cropping and tree species selection.

At Wexcombe Farm, Wiltshire, George Hosier runs a mixed farming business that capitalises on the synergies of animals in an arable rotation to deliver high quality crops and enhance soil and environmental health.

Gareth Williams, Caplor Energy, explains how identifying what you need is the key to maximising bioenergy use on-farm.

4pm YFC Debate HEALTHIER minds, healthier attitudes – How does the next generation manage modern stresses and strains to inspire and encourage greater inclusion and diversity into the profession? YFC AGRI chair Tom Pope and vice-chair Sammy Allen, Flavian Obiero and Charlotte Garbutt talk frankly about the challenges, opportunities and plans for a positive future.

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CEREALS 2021 PREVIEW Hear how farmer collaboration is delivering landscape-level environmental benefits as part of Defra’s Environmental Land Management scheme trials.

AHDB Theatre – Day two Sustainable Solutions seminars in association with the National Federation of Young Farmers’ Clubs Soil Health Day 9-9.50am A measure of the problem THIS session explores regenerative techniques and soil health measurement tools, looking at carbon sequestration and the interaction between macro and micronutrients.

Prof Steve McGrath, Rothamsted Research, asks what is an appropriate amount of carbon for soil? Scientists at Rothamsted have a soil health index based on soil’s carbon-to-clay ratio.

Knowing if your soil is in good health or degraded provides an essential baseline to protect, manage and monitor soil to improve its carbon storage and overall health.

NIAB head of farming systems Dr Elizabeth Stockdale says there’s a lot more to knowing your soils than just N, P and K. What other soil chemical and physical properties do farmers need to understand to deliver healthier and profitable soils?

Dorset farmer John Hawkins is working alongside the Poole Harbour Environmental Land Management Scheme trial and Wessex Water to build soil carbon to filter cleaner drinking water. This public private partnership is delivering improved soil fertility and public goods – a win-win situation.

10-10.50am: Insight on agricultural policy and environmental schemes.

ENGLISH Overview: Janet Hughes, Defra programme director for Future Farming and Countryside, discusses the Sustainable Farm Incentive and how working with landscape stakeholders delivers equitable benefits for all.

AHDB’s Sarah Baker explores the policy in all the UK’s devolved nations and the impact on future trade deals.

Louis Fell explains how farmer collaboration is delivering landscape-level environmental benefits as part of Defra’s Environmental Land Management Scheme trials.

11-11.50am Water wisdom NUFFIELD Scholar Rob Burtonshaw explores the productivity and environmental benefits of investing in drainage – and how new technology is making it more cost-effective.

New forecasting developments can provide farmers with accurate early drought warnings, reveals Jamie Hannaford, of the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, Wallingford.

Monitoring moisture levels is key to being able to manage soils to deliver healthy outcomes, explains Peter White, of Soil Moisture Sense.

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Midday-12.50pm: Monitor Farm Debate: Farming towards net zero 1-1.50pm It’s all about biology COVER and companion cropping are among a raft of measures being deployed to rebuild soil structure and health.

Scientists and farmers provide insights into soil restoration.

Prof Richard Bardgett, Manchester University, explains that the microbes that colonise the root zone have a major influence on crop growth and yield.

Mycorrhizal fungi, encouraged with the careful selection of cover and companion crops, are key to David Miller’s soil health strategy across three arable businesses in Hampshire.

NIAB regional agronomist (South) Dr Syed Shah looks at the science behind soil biostimulants and soil improvers.

2-2.50pm Quick fire technical sessions: The carbon conundrum – Julian Bell, SAC Consulting WITH Dr Jonathan Storkey, Rothamsted Research; and Dr Sarah Kendall, ADAS. 3-3.50pm Restoring and maintaining soil health – chair Liz Bowles, Soil Association SCIENTISTS and farmers provide insights into measures being used to rebuild soil structures and restore soil health.

Philip Wright, director of Wright Resolutions, explains how to use deep rooting crops and targeted mechanical interventions to reduce compaction both across and in fields.

Tim Chamen, owner of CTF Europe, explores the benefits of controlled traffic farming – how to implement it, what the benefits are and how to overcome common challenges.

Prof Adrian Newton, cereal pathologist at the James Hutton Institute, explores how intercropping can benefit soil health, crop health and productivity.

4pm YFC climate change challenge YOUNG farmers are embracing the race to net zero with new ideas and thinking. This is an opportunity to hear from inspiring young farmers and discuss climate-resilient food production and views for the COP26 conference in November. YFC AGRI’s chair Tom Pope and vice-chair Sammy Allen; Dr Ceris Jones, NFU climate change adviser; and Elliot Cole, winner of the NFYFC Climate Change Video Challenge.

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START YOUR ENTRY TODAY

Visit: britishfarmingawards.co.uk National Conference Centre, Birmingham | Thursday, October 21

DISCOVERED NEW APPROACHES THAT HAVE BOOSTED YOUR YIELDS? Whether you’re a high-tech arable farm or committed to a more low-tech approach - if you enjoy challenging conventional thinking, why not enter the Arable Innovator of the Year category and see how your thinking stacks up?

ENTER OR NOMINATE TODAY AT WWW.BRITISHFARMINGAWARDS.CO.UK

KNOW AN INNOVATIVE AND EXTRAORDINARY FARMER? If you don’t want to enter the awards yourself, but know someone who should be considered, why not nominate them for an award - start your nomination today at www.britishfarmingawards.co.uk

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broad range of cropping which includes a large number of row-grown vegetables and roots, plus both organic and conventional production systems, creates a significant need for repetitive inter-row weeding operations and a high demand for labour at Suffolk-based Nacton Farms. It is with this in mind that the business has purchased one of the UK’s first autonomous tractors.

With 1,940 hectares producing leeks, brassicas, onions, red beet and potatoes, plus fodder beet, sugar beet and cereals, farms director Andrew Williams points out that in both the conventional and organic production systems the business is increasingly limited in how it can control weeds.

“That’s both from a labour point of view – with good staff becoming harder to find and needing to be stimulated and challenged in their work – and from the conventional aspect because of pressures on herbicide chemistry. For this reason, we have been looking for a number of years for new methods of weed control and for other ways in which we can automate repetitive tasks and focus our labour on more stimulating, challenging and rewarding jobs.”

Technology The farm is a member of farmerowned inputs purchasing and crop marketing business Fram Farmers and it is through this link that its purchase of what is thought to be the country’s first autonomous tractor has come about.

Gordon Cummings, Fram Farmers’ machinery buyer, says: “As a farm inputs purchasing company which, among other things, buys machinery for its members, we have a strong interest in new technology.

“For a while now I had been

Nacton Farms has invested in one of the UK’s first commercially-sold autonomous tractors, the Robotti 150D from Danish firm Agrointelli.

Suffolk-based Home Farm Nacton has purchased one of the UK’s first commercially-sold robot tractors, primarily for working in conventional and organic vegetable crops. Martin Rickatson saw it in action.

Investing in robotics for broad-acre crops Andrew Williams

talking to various robot development companies and watching their work with interest. But while many of their machines are made for individual tasks, the Agrointelli Robotti particularly stood out for me, as it is essentially a multi-use tractor, with four wheels, an engine and a three-point linkage plus pto, and accepts standard implements.

“Talking with some of our group members, especially those involved

Also in this section 60 63 66 70 74

Farmers look to robots for guidance Curbing compaction Boosting crop nutrition application accuracy Harrow helps hybrid plan Cereals sees machinery go live

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in growing row crops and vegetables, they could see the advantages, particularly for repetitive tasks such as inter-row weeding, allowing them to put labour to better use. I developed dialogue with Agrointelli, a Danish company, over the past year and Mr Williams, farm director for one of our members, Home Farm, Nacton, near Ipswich, expressed a particularly keen interest in what its machine, the Robotti 150D, could achieve for his farm’s business.”

Having been put in touch by Mr Cummings with the team at Agrointelli, Mr Williams gained a clearer idea of the Robotti 150D’s capabilities.

“Mechanical and manual weeding are very repetitive tasks and in the latter case sourcing seasonal labour is becoming increasingly difficult.

With automation of various elements of machinery operation becoming more commonplace, I’m confident in the technology generally, and after talking with the Agrointelli team I was assured of the capability and reliability that was promised.

“After costing out a proposal indicating the investment – approximately £150,000 – versus the

potential labour savings and other gains such as not tying up a conventional tractor, I presented this to our management. After consultation with other parties such as our insurers, who were very helpful when given proof of the safety features of the machine, by January this year that proposal was approved.”

Support and back-up While Fram Farmers facilitated the sale of the first machine, it is not the importer. That role falls to West Midlands-based Autonomous Agri Solutions, a company formed recently by two Harper Adams graduates, who provide support and back-up. The machine is autonomously controlled with 2.5cm repeatable accuracy by RTK GPS via an onboard computer terminal, to which can be loaded a pre-programmed planned field route map.

Power comes courtesy of two conventional Kubota 75hp diesel engines. While the unit on the left side provides the drive to the hydrostatic wheel motors and powers the hydraulics, the righthand engine drives the pto. With

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ROBOTICS MACHINERY each engine having a 110-litre fuel tank, capacity is claimed to be sufficient for about 24 hours of continuous operation.

“That is one of the most significant attractions for us,” says Mr Williams.

“It can be in operation day and night without a need for change of driver, or the issue of driver fatigue, so it gives us a broader window of opportunity during potentially short windows of weather suited to weeding. By moving surface soil in the early stage of weed growth with guaranteed precision, we catch weeds early before they can affect the crop, making multiple, frequent passes where necessary.”

In operation on the farm since mid-April, the Robotti 150D’s work to date has centred around inter-row weeding of different vegetable crops using a Schmotzer tine weeder. According to Agrointelli, this is one of 50 robots which will be working in Europe by the end of the year.

Frederik Rom, Agrointelli sales manager, says: “As an example of the planning needed for a field task, it took approximately 10 minutes to map a 1.6ha field at Home Farm and a further 10 minutes to log the weeding plan into the system.

“Field obstacles, such as telegraph poles or trees, are logged at the programming stage. Any other obstacles outside of this, including

any approaching person, are detected by a laser scanner, while impact sensor bars also instantly stop the machine’s motion.”

Portal The Agrointelli website features an online Robotti portal, through which an owner is provided with real-time updates of the machine’s progress.

“While we were, naturally, quite cautious at the beginning of our time with the machine, I am now very confident to leave it working in the field,” says Mr Williams.

“It sends SMS text alerts of any issue with operation and via the portal I can link to the view from its

front and rear cameras. That’s not only useful from a safety and progress point of view, but it also allows me to assess crop growth progress.

“Through the website portal I can check data such as fuel levels, estimated work time based on the remaining fuel and the hours of work completed. I can also check and receive an alert when the machine has finished a task and needs to be moved via trailer to the next field.”

While the business’ soils are mostly light, Agrointelli suggests its development trials in Denmark show the Robotti also works well on heavier ground.

For Mr Williams, the decision to

Safety features include a laser scanner which detects unusual objects and impact sensor bars, both of which instantly stop the machine’s motion.

make a significant investment in technology previously unproven on a commercial scale in the UK has, to date, been vindicated, he believes.

“I’m very pleased with its performance so far. This season, while we become used to the system of working with it, the Robotti 150D is likely to be used solely for weeding. However, we have plans to extend its set of tasks to include topping and drilling in the future and perhaps transplanting. And over the longer term, should developments make it possible, I am especially interested in spraying applications for our conventional crops.”

Manual controls allow the machine to be manoeuvred onto a trailer for transport between fields.

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New model with pressurised hopper and ISObus controlled electric metering

Find out more at www.krm-ltd.co.uk

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Skilled staff are vital to farm business success, but training does not have to mean endless bills for expensive courses. Jez Fredenburgh speaks to a training consultancy specialist to find out what options are out there.

Upskilling staff need not be an endless expense

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arming faces a skills deficit and a challenge to recruit and keep bright young minds. But if farmers can offer training and development, they can turn this around and bolster their business in the process.

Young people are going to be critical if farming is to successfully deal with post-Brexit changes and environmental challenges, and tap into new natural capital markets.

Sue Bryan, farm consulting manager in the southern region for Promar, says: “It is not daunting for them in the same way; they see it as an opportunity.

“They are phenomenal at absorbing knowledge and will help drive change on farms, so it is important to develop their skills.”

Generation Y (those born from the mid-1990s onwards) also have a thirst for knowledge and rank training and development as their primary factor when deciding on a new job, according to recruitment agency The Hays.

Yet in a recent Farmers Guardian survey of 359 businesses, only 25% of farm employers and 36% of ancillary employers said they advertised training opportunities as a recruitment tool. And while 85% of employees said they received on-the-job training, 37% said they had no formal training days.

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When staff are well trained, feel motivated, listened to and the employer has a plan for their development, the whole business benefits and productivity can accelerate hugely, says Sue. It also means staff are more likely to stay.

She adds: “High staff turnover is costly.”

According to research by Oxford Economics and Unum, the average cost of replacing an employee who is paid £25,000 is more than £30,000.”

Investment

However, farmers should not assume people will stay in one place forever and it is okay if they move on even after investment, she says.

“There is a mentality in farming of ‘why should I train someone if they might leave?’. Well, because they are with you today, and if you can encourage someone to follow their dreams, even if it means they leave, then you can have five years of great productivity, communication, training and development, rather than five years of no investment and a work plateau.”

Off-farm, more formal training opportunities are wide and varied, ranging from a couple of hours to years-long courses.

Providers to tap into include BASIS, AHDB, Lantra, agricultural

JUNE 2021

colleges and universities, and it is also important farmers proactively look for training opportunities advertised in the farming press and by professional bodies and companies.

However, professional development is not all about formal training and does not need to cost a lot of money. In fact, formal training is ‘marginal’ compared to the continuous teaching and learning process which should be happening on-farm and peer-to-peer.

Young people often think training means something formal involving certificates, so when recruiting it is important to ask about their career ambitions and to communicate what training, formal or otherwise, will be provided.

Sue says: “What young people really want is somebody to spend time with them to show them how to do things. Training is often about helping employees understand why they need to do something and the way it needs to be done.

“Farming is relentless, so training is about building competencies so you can surround yourself with a team which does not create work by being incompetent.

Responsible

“If they do, you need to take a step back and understand who is respon-

sible for that incompetence. Is it that you haven’t shown them any differently?”

Farmers can easily run a competency assessment to identify areas for staff training, particularly if cash is short, as this will also help prioritise what to spend time and money on.

To do this, work with each staff member to list every task they do, then assess their competency in doing that task. If they need to improve, is it something which can be taught on-farm by someone else, or does it require more formal training?

Prioritise training in areas which are holding the business back.

Sue says: “It is purely about understanding where the competence priorities are and who is best to actually deliver that. Watching a webinar for something practical is going to be very unproductive, for example.”

Consider whether staff who do a task well can teach others, so everyone can pitch in and the farmer is not left with jobs at the end of the day that only he or she can do, she adds. This will also build resilience into the business.

Soft skills, such as communication and leadership, could also be important for staff who have a more managerial role.

FOR MORE INFORMATION: FGinsight.com/ThisIsAgriculture

21/05/2021 11:15

About #ThisIsAgriculture

Follow the campaign: on Instagram @this.is.ag; Twitter @This_Is_Ag; and Facebook and LinkedIn. Sue says: “A lot of the time, leadership is about developing self-awareness about the way you and your actions impact others. A training course will not help with that because it needs to be pointed out to you by the people around you.”

She suggests farming businesses provide one-to-one mentoring for an employee in this area, either by the farmer if they have those skills or a mentor outside the business.

Communication skills are linked to leadership skills and include how to give instructions, how to coach someone and how to discipline someone. Again, mentorship can be helpful.

Understand how your staff want to develop and have open discussions about it. Doing so will help you offer opportunities which encourage

them to stay or help you plan for if they think they will leave in the future.

Sue says: “One of the best questions you can ask your staff is ‘where do you want to be professionally and personally in around five years’ time’. If you drive an open relationship and they are able to say that in five years time they want to apply for their own farm tenancy, then you know where you stand and that in four years you will need to look for a replacement.

Respect

“If staff feel looked after, they will respect you and want to look after you too, so they are less likely to suddenly leave you in the lurch and might even help recruit and train up a replacement for themselves.”

On the other hand, an employee

#THISISAGRICULTURE has joined forces with key industry stakeholders from across the farming sector to promote careers in agriculture, collaborating with industry bodies and industry partners to see how and where we can work together to shape the political agenda, drive educational reform and provide learning resources. Articles will feature in Arable Farming to help agricultural businesses and farms understand recruitment and staff retention challenges and to share practical ideas they can adopt to mark the evolving changes which are happening in the careers, skills and training arena. might have ambitions which can be met on-farm, she adds, such as having the responsibility to drive the combine. In this case, put a training plan in place which works towards that ambition.

Use peer networks

Farmers can also tap into their own networks for free knowledge exchange. This is a good option for smaller farming businesses with fewer staff where it is harder to formalise training.

Sue says: “If there is a bigger farming business up the road, a staff member could go there for a morning.

“The other farm gets an extra pair of hands and you have done without your worker for a morning, but you have brought knowledge home and it has cost you effectively nothing.”

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AF June p58 59 ThisIsAg TR KH.indd 3

Not only is this an opportunity for your employee to learn and network, but they can then drive improvements on-farm and help your smaller businesses keep up with industry developments.

Encouraging staff to attend discussion groups, talks, events and spend time with professionals who come onto the farm, such as vets, mechanics and agronomists, are all good ways to plug into industry knowledge, improve skills and help staff network.

With Brexit-related policy changes and the opening up of the natural capital market, there are also likely to be many information sessions available for farmers, which staff could also attend.

Enabling them to engage in big issues will help them to drive necessary changes in the business.

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MACHINERY ROBOTICS Increased precision in data gathering to guide inputs could offer value for arable farms. Jane Carley finds out what role robotics could play in this.

Farmers look to robots for guidance

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he Small Robot Company (SRC) has taken further steps towards final production of its autonomous farm machinery range. The commercial specification version of its ‘Tom’ monitoring robot was recently unveiled at the Lockerley Estate, Hampshire, where farm manager Craig Livingstone, a member of the company’s farmer steering group, hopes to use robotics to help with management decisions.

This version of Tom has been manufactured in Blythe, Northumberland, by Tharsus, a

We were looking for a robot arm that was easily programmable, available at a reasonable cost ANDY HILL

60

machine and robot designer and manufacturer which also makes Ocado’s warehouse robots. A development of SRC’s previous prototypes, Tom has a six-metre boom which mounts six cameras to scan the field or crop.

Compared to previous incarnations, it features a more robust and substantial design while exerting ground pressure said to be less than that of a human.

Four-wheel steer offers manoeuvrability within the crop.

capacity and extended battery life. It can also generate sensor data such as soil health and even biodiversity from recording birdsong, says its creators.

When used to inform weeding, data stored on an SSD card is uploaded to the cloud

and used by the artificial intelligence platform Wilma to identify and map the individual weeds, devising a weed treatment plan.

Tom’s design will also form the basis for the final prototype of the ‘Dick’ weeding robot,

Probes direct an electrical current into the weed which travels down to the root and effectively ‘cooks’ it, leaving the weed to die off.

Detecting Tom is now operational in-field at three farms including Lockerley and is said to be capable of covering 20 hectares per day autonomously, collecting about six terabytes of data in an eight-hour shift, detecting millions of data points per field.

As an example, Tom collected data on 12.7 million plants in a single 6ha field, of which 250,000 were identified as weeds.

Plant details can be distinguished at submillimetre resolution and the next generation Tom also incorporates increased speed, 5K camera

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ROBOTICS MACHINERY

which uses commercially-proven RootWave electrical weed destruction probes deployed

to the plant using Igus delta robotic arms, which will be similarly boom mounted. This forthcoming version is a departure from the ‘space age’ looks of the current test rig towards a more ‘agricultural’ machine, which like Tom, will be developed to withstand the demands of on-farm operation.

Partnership A key step towards this is a partnership with motion plastics company Igus, which has supplied its delta robot arm, used commonly in industry for pick-and-place operations, to manoeuvre the probe which delivers the electrical current to the weed into place. It uses an integrated motor and encoder, linked to the Dick robot’s master controller and the three Igus delta arms fitted to each Dick can destroy weeds simultaneously.

The robot arm is a linear module in which all moving

parts are plastic and self-lubricating, in order to resist dirt and dust. As there is no requirement for oil, crop contamination risks are also eliminated.

SRC head of prototyping Andy Hill says: “We were looking for a robot arm that was

easily programmable, available at a reasonable cost and was robust enough to cope with the farming environment. The next step is to develop its operation to work along a boom, offering back and forth and side to side movement.

X

PICTURES: PAUL CARLEY

Small Robot Company has unveiled the final prototype of its Tom monitoring robot, manufactured by industrial robot specialist Tharsus.

Igus has developed a robotic arm to position the probes; they move according to images from a camera (under the orange ball-shaped cover) which locates weeds identified by Tom and the Wilma AI platform.

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61 18/05/2021 19:29

MACHINERY ROBOTICS In the field Craig Livingstone, Lockerley Estate, Hampshire JCraig Livingstone manages the 800-hectare Lockerley Estate and is part of the Small Robot Company’s farmer advisory group. As well as growing cereals, the farm also grazes 1,300 sheep in partnership with a local shepherd.

Mr Livingstone says: “We are a Leaf Marque farm and are moving towards regenerative agriculture and I am hoping that robots can help us accelerate that. We have taken up Higher Tier options with grass leys and

We would like to cut pesticides by 60% and I believe robots can help CRAIG LIVINGSTONE “We use the test rig in prototyping to prove the concept and check that the components are suitably robust and then move on to developing a repeatable commercial product with a partner such as Tharsus, as we have done with Tom,” he says.

Cameras mounted on the frame of Dick locate the weeds identified

clover, extended our rotation, introduced cover crops and swapped oilseed rape for pulses.

“The obvious benefits of nonchemical weeding with Dick are an attraction, but I am also keen to use the data that Tom can provide,” he adds.

“We already carry out soil scanning using five satellite stations for GPS mapping and perform detailed analysis, use section control, etc, but where do we go next?”

Pesticide spend Mr Livingstone says that the farm has already reduced its pesticide spend by 41% and cut fertiliser use.

“We are not organic but want to go in that direction. We would like to cut pesticides by 60% and I believe robots can help.”

He also points to the need to provide ‘public goods’ as an advantage of having more data to hand.

on the maps generated by Tom and upload their position to the Edge robot which controls the Igus arms to position the probes in the weed.

RootWave transformers convert the energy from Tesla-derived batteries to voltage delivered by the probes to destroy the weed via its roots. Workrates of 1.5 weeds/

The Dick weeding robot continues to be developed, with the RootWave electrical probes being field trialled on a test rig.

62

Lockerley Estate farm manager Craig Livingstone has trialled both Tom and Dick.

“We cannot put a value on not moving soil yet, but using robots for planting, for example, would contribute to this and allow us to quantify it. There is also potential to evaluate environmental gains by using sensors to record birdsong.

“Improved monitoring can certainly give us data to help

second per arm have been achieved and the process is said to work best in soils with some moisture, to provide the required conductivity.

Spot spraying While electrical weed destruction is the method currently being used, the robot arms could also be deployed for other types of control such as laser or microwave treatment or spot spraying.

Dick can be transported to the farm in a small van and driven into place using a remote control, before its autonomous field operation begins using GPS antennae and a base station.

SRC plans to press ahead with its ‘Farming As A Service’ concept rather than offering the robots for sale, which will include a commercial robot weeding service.

SRC founder Sam Watson

to decide what to do next – or more importantly ‘not to do something’. By having precise details of soil status and green cover to combine with historical weather data we can look at the possible scenarios ahead to adjust inputs. We know it is possible but it is having the confidence to do it and having data to hand is the key.”

Jones says: “This will be operated

by SRC staff and ultimately in a contract farming service. We expect to bring in partners such as our farmer advisory group to give them the scale for commercial use of the weeding service, plus agronomy companies and agricultural contractors.

“While a 250ha block is the ideal size for the Tom monitoring robot, even on a 2,000ha farm you would not use it on the whole acreage in the first year, and we plan to rollout the service to large and small farming businesses using our partners, who themselves range from 30ha to 4,000ha.”

On-farm pilots of per plant weeding will commence in autumn 2021, with 30 farms trialling the robots including the Lockerley Estate and Waitrose Leckford Estate over the next two years, before a wider rollout.

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COMPACTION MACHINERY Compaction is one of the biggest influencers of soil health. As such, reducing its impact on crop growth is of paramount importance to all growers. Geoff Ashcroft investigates several compaction-reducing techniques being employed on-farm.

Curbing compaction

T

here are many aspects involved in managing soil compaction. Tyre choice, inflation pressures, the use of rubber tracks and the routes taken by

in-field traffic all have an impact on how soil responds to weight and pressure. In addition, cropping choices and tillage regimes all play their part when it comes to overall soil health.

Soil damage increases the risk

of run-off and soil erosion, as well as reducing the uptake of essential nutrients. In such situations, it becomes essential to aerate the soil, allowing water, nutrients and air to pass through the profile, though avoiding

compaction in the first place can be far less costly than having to repair it.

To find out more, we spoke to three growers, all taking different approaches to managing and reducing compaction.

Strip-tillage benefits JFor one Somerset grower, the use of strip-tillage could hold the key to managing compaction, as a result of improving harvesting conditions in maize.

Dillington Estate, Illminster, Somerset, grows 200 hectares of maize within a 660ha rotation with potatoes, cereals and grass, to provide the high-energy forage crop for local anaerobic digestion and livestock customers.

Farm manager Ollie Blackburn says: “While the primary goal of strip-tillage is to seek a reduction in establishment costs, I can also see a benefit with compaction management too.

“And that is important with late season harvesting, when conditions underfoot can be less than ideal.”

Having trialled direct drilling to establish maize for the last four seasons, Mr Blackburn has now shifted the establishment process to strip-tillage using a Kverneland Kultistrip.

“Our direct drilled maize approach revealed that we really do need to move some soil and carry out deep loosening in preparation for precision planting maize.

“But we do not want to move all the soil and this is where strip-tillage can provide some real benefits for growing maize.

Second season

arrived at Dillington Estate for the 2020 season and gave opportunities to explore the principles of reduced cultivation. Working to 750mm

growth will stay suppressed and our cultivation costs could be reduced by up to 50%.”

The six-row, 4.5-metre hydraulic folding Kultistrip

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63 21/05/2021 10:19

MACHINERY COMPACTION Strip-tillage benefits (continued)

A move back to tyres

row spacings, the machine moves a 150mm strip of soil, leaving 600mm of land untouched between the rows.

“Leaving strips of ground untouched will maintain a firm surface for the forager and trailers to run on. That means less mud on the road and hopefully some easier harvesting conditions. In turn, I am expecting to see less of an impact on soil health and compaction in our maize fields.

“We are also putting cover crops in after potatoes and ahead of maize, to keep soil biology alive,” adds Mr Blackburn.

Running the Kultistrip at 280mm deep, soil is loosened and the surface is stripped clean ahead of being crumbled and firmed by rubber press wheels, ready for drilling.

JA mechanical approach to managing compaction is being taken by Michael Balls, arable manager at Albanwise Farming’s Hill Farm, Barton Bendish, who has switched from tracks to tyres to make the most of operational flexibility.

Mr Balls says: “We moved to a pair of Fendt 1050s three years ago, replacing twin-track crawlers.

“While the tracks were always viewed positively for managing compaction, we have now eliminated scuffing on headlands by going back to tyres.”

He says that big improvements in tyre technology to handle higher horsepower and the introduction of Fendt’s VarioGrip on-the-move central tyre inflation system have been a revelation.

“VarioGrip is a game-changer.

Ollie Blackburn

“Working at 11-12kph on a 150hp tractor, we can soon cover a lot of ground with the Kultistrip,” he says.

“There is a lot of untapped potential in this system, which could also help to establish maize after grass. This could be a huge benefit to growing this energy crop, without compromising on soil health.”

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Michael Balls

Though, we had to look at things differently and open our minds to the many options available. Part of this process is having your operators on-board with you.”

He says that there are parameters built into the on-board computer system for weight and load to help the

Controlling in-field traffic JIn-field traffic management is something that Oxfordshire grower Ben Smith is increasingly aware of, with his fleet of highcapacity, high output kit.

He runs on 40-metre tramlines, with 13.3m intermediate wheelings across the 2,000 hectares he farms from Manor Road Farm, Wantage.

In the last few years he has noticed a positive change in soil texture, with the top 50mm becoming much more friable and able to accept a more direct approach with cultivations and seed placement.

He says: “Worm activity is impressive, soils are restructuring and we have not needed slug pellets since 2019. Natural predators are working for us.”

Improvements seen from controlled traffic farming (CTF) and min-till practices from

Ben Smith

2014-2018 encouraged the farm a step closer to direct drilling. And three years into using a Dale Drills Eco XL grain/fertiliser no-till drill, he says there is no going back.

Disc option “We are now adding a Horsch Avatar to provide a disc option for those areas which can take a reduction in soil movement

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team make the most of tyre performance, traction and power.

“We tend to use 1.6-1.8 bar for road transport and 0.9-1.1 bar for fieldwork – though it all depends on the job being done and how much ballast the tractor is carrying.”

Productive He says it takes about 15 minutes to switch between road and field pressures and, to keep non-productive time to a minimum, the last pass around a field headland is an ideal opportunity to start the tyre inflation process.

“By the time the drill has been folded up and the tractor pulls out of the gateway, the tyres are inflated to operate at up to 60kph,” he adds.

The 3,600-hectare farming business handles a wide

Two Fendt 1050 tractors have replaced crawlers, helping to improve operational versatility and contribute to compaction management at Barton Bendish.

variety of crop types and uses the two Fendt 1050s for frontline cultivation and drilling.

Cultivation strategies are chosen to suit cropping, soil types and weather conditions.

“Had we stayed with rubber tracks we would have needed an extra tractor to do the jobs where you would not want to use the crawler. Putting a

500hp wheeled tractor on a trailer is not such a big deal, nor is road work.”

Importantly, the farm has a wide range of weights available for its tractors, including 3,300kg front weights and 1,200kg wheel weights for the two Fendts.

Operating weight can be adjusted from 16 tonnes up to 22t.

“Swapping weights is easy

and the tractor has surprised me with what it can do without any weight. If conditions allow, we will try drilling without any front-end weight this season.

“It does mean we can be considerate when it comes to managing compaction and when it is so easy to adjust pressures, the job gets done to a higher standard,” he says.

CTF with 40m tramlines supports 13.5m headers for Ben Smith’s two Lexions.

compared to the Dale Drill’s tines,” he says.

When it comes to harvesting, trailers stick to tramlines and a pair of Lexion combines with 13.5m headers follow the wheelings of the drill.

“We are at a stage where the drill needs less and less

power to pull because our soils are naturally repairing. We only subsoil any deeply rutted tramlines and any compacted intermediate wheel marks ahead of drilling, on a field-byfield basis. CTF has delivered huge improvements across the farm,” he adds.

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65 19/05/2021 13:23

MACHINERY APPLICATION Technology is contributing to enhanced precision with nutrient applications, but gains can also be made by changing working practices too. Geoff Ashcroft reports.

Boosting nutrition application accuracy

W

hen it comes to applying crop nutrition inputs accurately, growers have a range of options.

Most application work continues to be undertaken using twin disc spreaders, which have seen

significant improvements in terms of application precision.

Output With advanced electronics linked to GPS, spread pattern management has been improved to boost output without compromising accuracy.

Similarly, those handling liquid

fertilisers have seen sprayer developments offering impressive levels of accuracy through individual nozzle control and auto-section control.

Whether solids or liquids are being applied, both can benefit from variable rate application maps

and many application systems are able to integrate drone technology by using aerial crop imagery to identify areas for attention.

To find out more, we caught up with three growers to find out more about their approaches to boosting application accuracy.

Continues on pages 68-69.

In the field Graham Potter, Thirsk, North Yorkshire JOne grower making the most of multi-layered application technology is Graham Potter, who has recently added a 24-metre, 3,500-litre Mazzotti MAF3580 self-propelled sprayer to his fleet to increase application accuracy.

Mr Potter, based at 200-hectare Topcliffe Grange, Thirsk, says: “Variable rates hold the key to profitability on

our farm. We cannot afford to make blanket applications, nor can we apply sprays and fertilisers to areas where we will not see a benefit.”

In addition to individual nozzle control, Mr Potter’s Mazzotti sprayer is also fitted with the latest N-Sensor, allowing application management to contribute to more cost savings across the business.

Making the most of application accuracy, he also uses drones to provide an aerial view of crops. These include a DJI Phantom equipped with a second camera for NDVI imaging and also a DJI Mavic Air. The latter is a sub250g drone

and is free of the restrictions imposed on his larger aircraft, given the farm’s location within a no-fly, military air traffic zone.

“It takes too long to get clearance to fly the Phantom, so the smaller Mavic lets me analyse immediately with the help of the Skippy Scout app.

Autonomous “It can fly autonomously to any flagged points I have chosen in-field and provide basic data that lets me create a treatment plan through Drone Deploy.

“We only use the drone selectively, as a management tool to target immediate issues,” says Mr Potter.

“And if we cannot bring up the under-

performing areas of a field, we will simply take them out of production and sow bird and bee mixes where cereal production just will not pay.

“Variable rate had already reduced our costs, though individual nozzle control means we are now more precise with all our liquid applications,” he says.

“Investing in precision farming systems is a long-term plan, but I believe it is the best investment a farm could make.

“More so when you consider the savings on offer from reducing overlaps, adopting variable rates and spot treatment plans.”

The Mazzotti MAF3580 features individual nozzle control and an N-Sensor.

Inset: Drones play an integral part in all spray-based applications for Graham Potter.

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MACHINERY APPLICATION In the field Hamish Stewart, Alcester, Warwickshire JFertiliser applications by disc spreader continue to dominate and advances in GPS control systems have contributed to reducing overlaps through startstop technology.

Additionally, the ability to vary spread width through automatic section control is recouping the cost of sophistication in just a few years for Hamish Stewart, at Ragley Home Farms, Warwickshire.

With about 400 tonnes of bagged fertiliser to apply each year, farm manager Mr Stewart makes the most of his Kverneland Exacta TL fitted with the firm’s Geospread system.

“We tray test with SCS and buy reputable fertilisers to ensure we spread correctly at 32 metres,” Mr Stewart says.

The 2,400-hectare

We now apply exactly the right amount of fertiliser, in all the right places HAMISH STEWART Warwickshire estate operates across 1,600ha of arable cropping, with a mix of winter and spring cereals, plus linseed and poppies, with grass and parkland accounting for 280ha.

Until six years ago, Ragley Home Farms only used liquid fertiliser, but the workload proved too much for just one self-propelled sprayer.

“With the introduction of an accurate fertiliser spreader, it is logical to share the workload across the farm,” he says.

Exact “While we can now spray and spread at the same time, albeit on different areas of the farm,

perhaps more importantly we now apply exactly the right amount of fertiliser, in all the right places.

“We have found our crop canopies have evened out and we have eliminated lodging at headlands from auto start/stop and section control. Headlands

In the field Clive Wreathall, Romney Marsh, Kent JAway from advances in technology, one Kent grower has adopted a more simplistic viewpoint, which focuses on maintaining the spreader’s working height to boost accuracy. This is because Clive Wreathall chooses to carry his fertiliser spreader on a bogie.

“We have moved away from buying technology that does not have a benefit,” says Mr Wreathall, who farms 1,200 hectares on Romney Marsh with his brother Andrew.

“It can be a very costly exercise.”

Their rotation includes winter wheat, winter and spring barley, oilseed rape and peas. But with land on two units located around seven miles apart, the emphasis is on minimising downtime and maximising productivity.

A 40-metre tramline system is in place and the farm’s

68

There is no bouncing from the tractor, so the spread pattern is maintained CLIVE WREATHALL

Hardi Alpha sprayer is used exclusively for crop protection products – all fertiliser applications continue to be applied using a twin-disc spreader.

“We run a KRM Bogballe machine, but we do not carry it on the tractor’s three-point linkage. It is pointless at this width,” he says.

“Firstly, it is very heavy and would need a heavy tractor with ballast to maintain balance and composure.

“Secondly, to successfully apply over a 40m tramline width, the spreader’s discs need to sit at a perfect ride height all the time. And to achieve that, we need to avoid influencing the spread pattern

from the tractor bouncing and pitching around.

“The only way to achieve this is with a bogie system towed by the tractor. This means we can also use a smaller, lighter tractor, which also helps maintain tramline condition.”

Mr Wreathall says 130hp is all that is required, because the tractor only has to pull, not carry, the Bogballe spreader.

Ride height “The spreader now sits at the prescribed ride height all the time, no matter what the tractor does.

“There is no bouncing from the tractor, so the spread pattern is maintained. This is important when you want to throw fertiliser over such a wide width. The smallest movement at the disc becomes amplified when you look at the outer edges of the spread pattern.”

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Fertiliser applications are carefully targeted using variable rate application to suit crop and soil types.

account for 33% of the land we farm, so this area demands closer scrutiny.”

Average field size is just 6.5ha, with inputs carefully

W E NE KAG C PA

targeted using variable rate applications to suit crop and soil types. Operating efficiency is helped by a high-tip trailer, into which fertiliser bags

are emptied, to speed up turnaround times when the spreader needs refilling.

“Using a trailer to fast-fill has created a huge efficiency gain

and given the accuracy of weigh cells and RTK-guidance, we can cover around 600 acres/day, spreading at speeds of up to 20kph.”

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69 21/05/2021 10:04

MACHINERY WEED CONTROL For one Staffordshire farm, reducing its reliance on chemicals has seen a change in mindset and the purchase of a super-sized comb harrow to combat weeds. Alex Heath finds out more.

Harrow helps hybrid plan

R

educing the input costs of growing cereal crops is the aim for Simon Bayliss, farm manager at Wincote Farms, based near Eccelshall, Staffordshire. The business operates across 667 hectares of owned, contract farmed and stubble to stubble rentals, farming medium to light soils.

Of particular interest to Mr Bayliss and operator Rhys Edwards is the farm’s historic reliance on chemical means to control weeds, pests and diseases, an approach they believe can be to the detriment of the crop. As a result, for the last few seasons, they have been looking at ways to reduce reliance on chemicals by adopting a more natural means of crop protection and implementing a hybrid system.

The farm traditionally grew oilseed rape, but this year the cropping rotation revolves around wheat and spring and winter barley.

Mr Bayliss says: “We are still a conventional farm, but look to incorporate as many regenerative practices into our methods as

possible. One of our biggest expenses in the past has been chemicals, however, we have come to the realisation that often they do the crop more harm than good, with crops becoming reliant on sprays to fix small issues.

Intensive care “Chemicals, especially fungicides, are like intensive care; the plant becomes reliant on them. They strip the protective layer of wax off the leaf to treat the initial problem, leaving the plant susceptible to other diseases that have an easy entry. I would rather give the plant all the nutrition it needs to fight the challenge itself, giving a more robust plant. We regularly take leaf samples that are analysed for deficiencies in trace elements.

“We are now taking a much more considered approach to our spray use, in particular herbicides and fungicides. Last year we trialled cutting our chemical use for two fields of wheat totalling 20ha. A pre-emergence herbicide was used and half-rate fungicide at T2, with

From left: Operator Rhys Edwards and farm manager Simon Bayliss are looking at ways to reduce reliance on chemicals.

two broad-leaved herbicides also used. The fields averaged 13 tonnes/ ha with lower input costs. That made us think about the use of herbicides and I started looking for something that would match our tramlines, but eliminate the need to spray.”

After research and seeing what other like-minded farmers were doing, Mr Bayliss purchased a Hatzenbichler comb harrow from importers Opico. Arriving on the

farm earlier this year, the harrow is thought to be the largest in the UK at 24 metres. It was put straight to work with the first flush of spring weeds in March, showing immediate results, according to Mr Bayliss.

Mr Edwards, who is one of the operators to use the rake, says the farm is still learning to use the harrow optimally, including which conditions, weed burden and stage of the crop are best.

He says: “I will walk crops each X

At 24m, the Hatzenbichler harrow matches the farm’s tramlines with outputs of up to 113ha/day.

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AF June p70 72 73 Harrow TR AH JR KH.indd 2

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The harrow has tines spaced 30mm apart and is being used for weed control in cereal crops.

week and look out for weeds as part of my checks and make a decision on the burden. We do not want to knock out everything as some can be beneficial, such as speedwell for pollinators. However, I have to balance the number of weeds and their size, ensuring the timing of each pass to maximise the amount

Not only does the harrow disturb weeds, but it breaks any capping on the surface and removes dead leaves from the crop.

removed, while keeping them small enough to be vulnerable to the tines.

“The harrow is designed to run in between the rows, but the odd tine does make contact with the crops.

This is not an issue though as the harrow’s aggressiveness can be altered relatively easily. What we have seen is the harrow will knock NE

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off dead leaves that have been challenged by septoria, with the leaves getting put in the middle of the rows, further away from healthy leaves. The brushing action seems to stimulate the plant to grow more.

“In addition, the surface of the soil is broken, removing any capping and letting it breathe. The rougher texture also allows for better water infiltration.”

Work rates are impressive, reports Mr Edwards.

“The ideal speed to work at is about 12kph. This enables the 6mm tines plenty of momentum to oscillate, covering all the ground.

We tend to pull the harrow with a 190hp tractor and the best day we have had saw 113ha covered.

Flexibility “Compared to spraying, the harrow allows more flexibility to go on windy days, when spraying would not be possible, however, the soil needs to be dry enough to allow the tine to move. If it is too damp, they will not vibrate, rather they will just draw lines.”

This change of approach is seen throughout the decision-making process on-farm, with a commitment to reducing input costs for the benefit of the crops and the farm’s soil structure.

The plough is reserved only for the dirtiest of fields the farm takes on, but is likely to be used as a garden ornament in the future, says

The path we have committed to is flexible and is working for us and other farms across the country SIMON BAYLISS Mr Bayliss. Likewise, glyphosate is rarely used and only as a last resort.

The drilling strategy employed on-farm has changed in recent years and is still being adapted. All straw is chopped, which acts as a weedsuppressing mat, while providing nutrition to soil dwelling organisms.

The cultivation method of choice is a He-Va nine leg subsoiler and 5.5m-wide short disc combination which works at about 15mm deep.

Mr Bayliss says the structure of soils has improved sufficiently in recent years to the extent that subsoiling will be done in rotation going forward.

Drilling is carried out with a Pottinger Terrasem C8, fitted with wavy discs, that just cultivate and clean the strip being drilled. Mr Bayliss reports the drill offers flexibility in terms of how much cultivation is done and can be used when he wants as a direct drill, reducing soil disturbance.

JUNE 2021

AF June p70 72 73 Harrow TR AH JR KH.indd 3

20/05/2021 14:40

WEED CONTROL MACHINERY The harrow JThe harrow is manufactured

by Austrian firm Hatzenbichler and imported by Opico. At 24m wide, it matches up to Wincote Farm’s existing tramlines.

The trailed harrow is made up of four folding sections.

Each section has four 1.5m-wide beds of tines, totalling 16. There are 10 aggressiveness settings for the 48 tines on each bed, which is done via a pin and quadrant assembly on each bed. Tines are spaced at 30mm centres.

He is also drilling crops earlier (wheat at the start of September and barley in the second half of the same month), enabling them to go into winter in a stronger position. As part of his philosophy, chemical seed treatments are not used, relying on biostimulants to offer protection and a kickstart.

Digestate is applied in April, with nitrogen requirements topped up with liquid fertiliser, one of the only jobs the sprayer is reserved for.

Both Mr Bayliss and Mr Edwards are convinced that applied ecology is the way forward.

Open minded Mr Bayliss says: “Yields have stagnated in recent years, with more work and inputs put into the crop just to stay on the same tonnes per hectare. We need to be open minded and adaptable about what we are doing, finding ways to cut costs while enhancing soil health and crop viability. The path we have committed to is flexible and is working for us and other farms across the country that are using similar principles.”

Mr Edwards adds: “There is a symbiotic relationship between the soil, microbes and the plants growing. Soil wants cover, hence weeds grow. The microbes within the soil feed off the carbon exudates given off by growing plants, enhancing the health of the soil.

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Alterations Mr Bayliss says the harrow has done a stellar job so far, however, being one of the first produced and used in the UK, he has some alterations he would like making for conditions in the UK. Larger tyres underneath would be an advantage he says, with the 3,950kg weight at the limit of what the existing rubber can carry in the field.

He would also like to see some form of section control added, enabling gangs of beds to be lifted out of work, when approaching angled headlands.

However, so far he says the work rate and quality of the job done by the harrow is better than initially expected, with other benefits also seen in addition to the removal of weeds.

off to a good start reduces the amount of space for weeds.”

Mr Bayliss concedes that in certain situations sprays are unavoidable, with pre-emergence herbicides still a vital tool.

However, the hybrid approach taken has already seen savings and he reports crops are looking as healthy as ever.

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JUNE 2021 AF June p70 72 73 Harrow TR AH JR KH.indd 4

Keep accurate historical data

73 21/05/2021 10:07

MACHINERY CEREALS PREVIEW The first major ‘live’ agricultural event for more than a year, Cereals 2021 will offer an be aired in public for the first time. As ever, there will also be working demonstrations

opp of

Cereals sees machinery g Sprayers rThe Sprays and Sprayers area is a highlight of the show and will see the launch of sponsor Syngenta’s 3D Ninety nozzle, specifically designed and engineered to better target spray application, while also reducing the risk of drift.

Visitors to the Sprays and Sprayers area will also get the chance to see the EasyConnect closed transfer system in operation on new sprayers. rMazzotti’s new compact selfpropelled sprayer, the

MAF 4080, will also make its UK show debut at Cereals 2021.

This Stage 5, 175hp, 4,000litre capacity model features the firm’s new M-Spray dualcircuit solution system, MK spray booms with widths of 24 to 36 metres, John Deere spray controls, a new John Deeresourced operator station and a high-performance hydrostatic 40 or 50kph transmission as standard. rCereals will see the public

unveiling of the new Amazone Pantera 4504 self-propelled sprayer, which focuses on increased work rates and features intended to reduce the workload on the driver.

This includes a new in-house operating system, modified liquid circuit and changes to the operator station.

In addition, twin AR piston diaphragm pumps, with a total output capacity of 520 litres/ minute, have been repositioned over to the right-hand side to cut noise during the filling process.

They offer a fill capacity of up to 700 litres/minute.

The new AmaDrive 7.0 colour touch-screen terminal has been integrated in the armrest, controlling machine-specific functions. Other features include the firm’s ContourControl active boom guidance system and SwingStop swing compensation. rSuitable for retrofitting to most makes of sprayers, Altek’s GPScontrolled Smart-C-Spray 124 application system has been developed in conjunction with

Cultivations rAmazone’s new Cenio cultivator is aimed at operators with smaller tractors, featuring a shorter, lighter design, making it easier for the tractor to lift.

The Cenio, with 300mm tine rows and a maximum working depth of 250mm, keeps the three-row tine layout of the Cenius, but has one fewer tine per row and a shallower maximum working depth. rReplacement wearing parts specialist Agricast will be showing its new steel tensioned packer, developed in response to growers saying that wet weather was causing smearing and soil flattening, making drilling hard work.

Agricast has designed the STP with a shouldered profile and 190mm spacing to leave an open surface, which dries

out quickly in the wind. The STP650 fits onto new and existing machines, including those made

by Cousins, He-Va, Horsch and Sumo, among others. rOpico will show the new XL (pictured) version of its Disc Roller Contour, developed by He-Va to meet demand for a heavier disc-type machine, designed for more aggressive cultivation than its smaller sibling.

Suitable for primary and secondary cultivations at high speeds, the Disc Roller Contour XL features new larger 610mm Sabre discs allowing it to work at depths of up to 160mm.

It is available as a rigid or folding machine in widths of 2.75-7.75 metres.

A selection of differing front

I

tools, including top cutter, shattaboards, slicerboards and straw tines, increase the versatility of the Disc Roller XL range. rAn expanded range of SPL Ultra points, wings and shins will be the focus of the Spaldings stand, as the Lincolnshire-based company celebrates 65 years in business.

The latest addition to the Spaldings SPL Ultra range is the R1360 Rear Subsoil Point for Keeble Progressive cultivator/subsoilers; this onepiece structure has 16mm thick, 127mm wide soil lifting wings with tungsten tile leading edges behind a projecting point with tungsten tiles on the face and sides.

Cereals preview continues on pages 76-77.

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AF June p74 75 76 77 Cereals machinery JR TR KH.indd 2

21/05/2021 10:10

Shot wit or

an ns

CEREALS PREVIEW MACHINERY opportunity to see the latest in arable machinery and technology, much of which will of cultivators, drills and sprayers. Jane Carley previews some of the kit highlights.

y go live the Danish sprayer controller manufacturer Lykketronic.

It offers operators turn compensation and individual nozzle control on up to four spray lines, along with the ability to use air-inclusion low drift nozzles.

Pitched as a ‘smart’ alternative to PWM systems, it also features the company’s Auto Nozzle Select variable rate application and Nozzle-Spy flow monitoring. rKnight Farm Machinery will show a number of innovations

including examples of its 1800 Series self-propelled model with a lower-set cab, which lowers the machine’s centre of gravity, and the new 1850 self-propelled model featuring a 5,000-litre spray tank, to complement the 1835 (3,500-litre spray tank)

and 1840 (4,000-litre) models already in the range.

Knight has also completely uprated the Trailblazer range, with models varying from the high-spec Trailblazer Pro (pictured) through to the entry level Trailblazer-Lite.

Feed your seed Introducing the Triple-shoot system Hopper 1 Seed

Hopper 2 Fertiliser Hopper 3 Other

The redesigned Trailblazer Pro offers simplified plumbing, an air purge system, auto-clean water tank fill and a new induction hopper that aids cleaning and minimises risks to the operator and the environment, says the manufacturer.

Providing targeted nutrition when drilling is key to giving your crops the best possible start in life.

Take the NEW Amazone Triple-shoot system - it gives you the flexibility to sow your cash crop along with a companion plant and fertiliser - all at three different placement depths and all in a single pass.

The beauty of the Cirrus Triple-shoot, multi-hopper concept, is that it can place fertiliser in the row and/or between the rows when sowing, can drill three different seed varieties - either in one row or up to three different rows - and even broadcast on the surface.

Triple-shoot gives you the ability to sow two seed types along with fertiliser at three different placement depths.

Shot 1: fertilising at 7 cm with the FerTeC coulter or a second seed type Shot 2: seeding at 2 cm with the TwinTeC+ double disc coulter – with or without fertiliser in the row

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Cirrus

AF June p74 75 76 77 Cereals machinery JR TR KH.indd 3

Shot 3: surface broadcasting of companion plants or micro-granules

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Get the full story, visit: triple-shoot.com/en or call Amazone Sales on: 01302 755 725 or contact your local dealer. www.triple-shoot.com/en

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21/05/2021 10:11

MACHINERY CEREALS PREVIEW Seeding rOpico will have an eight-metre model of the Sky EasyDrill on show for the first time in the UK. The W8020 Fertisem EasyDrill shares the same coulters, multihopper capacity and electronic system as the 4m and 6m pneumatic drills.

With up to four hoppers and the ability to drill product at two depths, accurate placement of multiple combinations of seed and/or fertiliser at two depths is possible, says the manufacturer.

The main hopper is split between grain and fertiliser, each with their own pneumatic distribution. In addition, the option of up to two separately metered Pro hoppers can be integrated so seed or microgranules can be introduced via either distribution circuit.

The 8m drill is IsoBus-ready and supplied as standard with Sky’s Quartz 800 control box.

E-Drive premium can also be specified which offers left and right section control as well as

electronic row shut-off for each outlet, allowing the drill to be set to seed with a number of row configurations at the touch of a button. This also means that whatever the width of the sprayer or spreader, it no longer needs to be a multiple width of the drill. rKuhn Farm Machinery will focus on demonstrations at Cereals. Drills being put through their paces will include the 6m Aurock 6000 RC, with dual metering and a 5,000-litre capacity split hopper.

Designed for a low power requirement, the Aurock has the option of 460mm diameter corrugated discs, for working in prepared soil or soil mixing, or a 430mm diameter embossed disc, for cutting residues efficiently and minimising soil ejection, says Kuhn.

With its dual metering capability, the Aurock 6000 RC is capable of dual cropping or alternate row drilling with independent management of seeding depth. It can also be fitted with an integrated cutter roller with adjustable pressure,

to enable efficient operation in all cover types.

Also on show will be an eightrow version of Kuhn’s Maxima 3 precision drill (pictured), suitable for drilling crops where row spacings of 375-800mm are used. The range includes 12 models, with electric drive versions available in mounted formats including telescopic, foldable, and telescopic with adjustable spacing.

Electrically-driven models have IsoBus compatibility, with control from either the tractor terminal or Kuhn’s own CCI terminal.

MMS with an existing drying system, a standalone control panel would be required.

MMS can be pre-configured

to automatically send text alerts should the moisture content fall below predefined maximum and minimum levels.

Farm infrastructure rMastenbroek will be exhibiting as part of the National Association of Agricultural Contractors (NAAC) Drainage Area.

The company’s return to the event will give visitors an opportunity to find out about the latest technology that can be used to transform field drainage and improve crop yields.

Mastenbroek and Trimble have worked in partnership since 2010, when the precision farming specialists developed a GPS system for drainage trenchers. Today, all Mastenbroek trenchers are factory-ready for Trimble GPS machine control.

As part of the NAAC Drainage Area, Mastenbroek will demonstrate how Trimble

76

WM-Drain software can interact with precision farming data to survey and design sub-surface and surface drainage, together with the machinery to install it. rBDC Systems will be showcasing how its Moisture Monitoring System (MMS) (pictured) is helping farmers and grain store operators accurately and automatically check the moisture content of wet grain as it enters storage.

BDC’s MMS emails details of moisture content to any mobile device as well as sending text alerts if pre-defined moisture content limits are exceeded.

The system can be monitored directly from the control panels of all BDC’s new grain dryers, but for anyone wanting to deploy

JUNE 2021

AF June p74 75 76 77 Cereals machinery JR TR KH.indd 4

21/05/2021 11:52

CEREALS PREVIEW MACHINERY Tractors, combines and balers rJohn Deere will showcase precision technology solutions for arable farmers and contractors alongside its latest tractors. Making their event debut are the 7R 350 and 8RX four-track models.

Topping the 7R range, the new 7R 350 tractor develops up to 388hp with power management and features the firm’s stepless AutoPowr transmission as standard. With a minimum shipping weight of 11.4 tonnes, this latest 7R Series model has a weight-to-power ratio of 29kg/hp. Upgrades include a new luxury cab with massage seat, the CommandPro joystick and enhanced Precision Ag technology.

John Deere’s new flagship X9 combine (pictured), which is designed specifically to tackle tough, high yielding, ‘wet’ conditions. The manufacturer says the X9 1100 can harvest wheat at 100t per hour at less than 1% grain loss.

rAlso from the green and yellow camp and on display for the first time at Cereals will be

rMcHale has expanded its range of variable chamber balers with the introduction

of the V8940 non-chopper baler and the V8950 15-knife chopper baler, designed to produce bales from 0.6-1.9 metres in diameter, with up to 30% more crop in a 1.9m bale than is achievable in a 1.68m V6 bale.

Features include a new pickup with a choice of cam track or cam-less designs, larger lateral feed augers and rotor,

bale chamber with three heavyduty endless belts and highperformance netting system.

Operation is via the firm’s new Expert Plus Control Console, which has a large graphic display.

From the control console, the operator can adjust core, bale size and density, plus the number of revolutions of net being applied.

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77 21/05/2021 11:53

RESEARCH IN ACTION Recent dry springs have triggered an AHDB investigation into the potential to irrigate wheat. Andrew Blake reports.

Is wheat worth irrigating?

W

ith nearly a third of the UK’s wheat crop grown on droughtprone land, a series of farmer-led tramline irrigation trials is underway in partnership with Cranfield University.

The university’s Prof Jerry Knox says: “On average we think about 10,000 hectares of the country’s wheat is irrigated each year, mainly to preserve grain quality, but that figure does oscillate depending on summer rainfall.

“The area is small compared with the 150,000ha typically irrigated for all other field vegetable and potato crops, but there can be appreciable yield responses in wheat to relatively small volumes of irrigation water, typically up to 50mm in a dry year.

“Irrigation is an expensive and time-consuming operation. So, we need to provide advice that is robust and relevant for growers.”

The publication ‘Irrigated Crops and their Management’, written by ADAS’ Roger Bailey and published in the 1980s, suggested various soil moisture deficits which might trigger cereal irrigation on specific soil types.

However, there is a complete absence of recent published

78 AF June p78 79 R in A KH TR AD.indd 2

E.W. Davies Farms has trialled irrigating wheat.

In the field Ben Martin, Suffolk

Prof Jerry Knox

information for UK wheat production about how much water is required; when it should be applied and how; the influence of soil textures on critical trigger thresholds, and the economics for modern varieties, adds Prof Knox.

Trials To help fill those knowledge gaps, seven farms in East Anglia and Yorkshire have agreed to become involved in what he describes as ‘scoping trials’.

They are on a range of soil types – clay, light sand/gravel and fenland.

AHDB’s Teresa Meadows says: “On average, research shows about 10% of UK wheat yield is lost due to insufficient soil moisture.”

Economic modelling of milling wheat grown on

JBen Martin manages 1,300 hectares of blowing sand to loamy sands over chalk at Moulton Manor Farm, near Newmarket in Suffolk, where the 20-year average annual rainfall is 634mm.

He says: “We are very well invested in irrigation equipment and infrastructure – 14 reels, of which eight are 72-metre Briggs booms, and six

sandy loam has suggested that irrigating wheat can be rewarding, but only where farms already have the necessary equipment and ‘unused’ summer water is available, she adds.

“All seven farms already have irrigation equipment and

rain guns, two of these fitted with GPS section control.

“We run Raindancer GPS software on each machine which gives us remote control of the reels and the ability to apply water at variable rates. We have a mixture of boreholes, reservoirs and river abstraction licences.

“We normally irrigate some of our wheat area each year, the

abstraction licences for water – some have a root crop rotation; others are irrigating just cereals.”

The hope is that their experiences in 2021 and feedback will help answer several key questions (see panel, below).

Trials questions to be addressed rHow much and when does irrigating wheat pay yield dividends? rWhat influence does soil texture have? rHow should irrigation be

scheduled (for example, timing, frequency, rate, and total amount applied)? rHow should irrigation be prioritised in relation to high-value crops?

JUNE 2021 19/05/2021 18:37

RESEARCH IN ACTION In the field Jeremy Durrant, Essex JEssex-based Jeremy Durrant is among the farmers involved in the scoping trials.

Miss Meadows says: “Working with Jeremy and others, it became evident that there were questions that hadn’t yet been answered.

“With irrigating of cereals potentially becoming more important in the years ahead due to increased drought frequency, it seemed like a good opportunity to start the conversation.”

Over the past six years, annual rainfall at the 1,300-hectare E.W. Davies Farms, based at The Hydes, Thaxted, has been 50mm lower

percentage depending on the pressure on our system from the potatoes and other high value crops.”

Wheat and other cereals are usually irrigated at the end of April to early May before the vegetables.

“Where we’ve irrigated part fields, we’ve recorded a yield response of 20% plus,” Mr Martin says.

For this year’s trial a soil moisture deficit probe is being inserted into a wheat field and a 72m boom width

area is being irrigated at a predetermined SMD trigger point.

“We’ll work with the Soil Moisture Sense company to establish and monitor the trigger point,” he adds.

“I hope to learn how to better target wheat irrigation and take some of the guesswork out of it by using soil probes to give me exact trigger points linked to soil moisture – and then matching these to when the wheat plant has a high demand for water.”

Rising world wheat prices would make irrigation more

than the long-term average of 550mm, says Mr Durrant.

He grows mainly combinable crops, maize and sugar beet, his water source being spring-fed reservoirs with a summer abstraction licence for 205,000cu.m.

Probes “We’ve used probes for 10 years or so to monitor what’s going on with soil moisture and rooting and most years they show we are moisture limited,” says Mr Durrant.

“Last year was the first that we trialled irrigating wheat. We have always thought there would be

economically feasible, he adds.

“However, making sure the wheat crop and the soil it’s grown in is as resilient as possible has to be the first consideration, with irrigation used as a tool to then help the crop reach its full potential.

“It’s unlikely we’ll ever have access to more water, so building our soils’ resilience to drought by increasing its organic matter and using the water we do have in the most efficient and targeted manner is our main focus.”

a benefit, but with ADAS’ Yield Enhancement Network suggesting that on our soil type, predominantly Hanslope clay, we were not moisture limited, we wanted to see for ourselves whether this was the case.

“We trialled a small area, applying 75mm in four weekly passes from mid-May and saw an average yield gain of four tonnes/ha.

“We have purchased some cheap second-hand rain gun equipment and will expand the area to cover up to 100ha.

“The area and the amounts of water applied will depend on rainfall and moisture probe data.

We want to try to learn optimum timings and amounts.”

A rain-fed unirrigated control tramline will be left at each pass.

“This way we can start to see if there is any economic benefit,” he says.

“Last year was about proving to ourselves that moisture was a limiting factor and seeing if we could do anything to remove that variable. This year we’re looking more at timings and quantities to get the biggest economical response.”

Higher wheat prices will clearly make irrigation easier to justify, he adds.

Browse, list and apply for hundreds of the latest Arable roles at jobsinagriculture.com JUNE 2021 AF June p78 79 R in A KH TR AD.indd 3

79 19/05/2021 18:38

TALKING POLICY

MATT Culley Now is the time for all who work in our industry to take a good, hard look at what we do and how we behave

T

he recent spate of fatal farm accidents reported in the farming press has made for stark reading for all who live and work in our industry. As well as the most recent incidents, it is anticipated that in July when the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) publishes fatal accident statistics for 2020/21, the figures will show that around 45 people have lost their lives in farm workplace accidents. This is the highest annual figure for 25 years.

The statistics include farmers, farmworkers, contractors and members of the public and involve people well over retirement age as well as children.

In relation to other industries, agriculture has the worst rate of worker fatalities. It goes without saying that our first thoughts go to the families, friends and

About the author rNFU crops board chairman Matt Culley is a fourth-generation farmer from Hampshire working in partnership with his parents and brother rThe 720-hectare enterprise produces wheat, barley, oilseed rape, forage maize and rye for anaerobic digestion across varying soil types, from chalk and chalk loam to clay cap. This includes 170ha of owned and rented land and 540ha of contract farming agreements rThe family also runs a pick-your-own soft fruit and summer vegetables business

80

loved ones of those who have lost their lives, but our thoughts and actions must not end there.

Now is the time for all who work in our industry to take a good, hard look at what we do and how we behave; to stop making excuses and change our mindset in relation to health, safety and well-being in our day-to-day working practices.

The real sad truth is that the recent fatality figures will not show the whole picture of what happens on-farm. They will not tell of the near misses or minor injuries that could have been more serious. Anecdotal stories would suggest our industry has deep seated issues when it comes to risks being taken at work and if we were to report the near misses and minor injuries and the instances in which they occurred it would make for pretty sobering reading.

Perhaps we need a national platform for farmers and growers to anonymously share such instances so they can be learned from? We need to help educate our industry as there are some parts really trying to make positive changes but other parts where it is simply not cutting through.

Industry representative organisations such as the NFU and Yellow Wellies are trying to raise awareness in health and safety – the NFU’s online Farm Safety Hub gives good practical advice based around accident prevention and also provides guidance on health and safety law alongside further advice from HSE and NFU experts.

The hub centralises its advice around the most common causes of injury and fatality, including transport and machinery, working at height and working with livestock. Things as simple as

following the Safe Stop procedure when getting out of a cab (engage handbrake, put controls in neutral, switch off engine, remove key) can save the lives of many – which I think we can all agree is worth the extra few minutes it takes to turn everything back on again.

And it’s not only those who work on our farms that we need to consider when addressing the risks of our working environment. Of course we have family who live on-site and friends who visit to think of, but also those who visit the farm to carry out their own working duties such as agricultural merchant reps or machinery engineers.

The effects of our poor health and safety record have recently been stated to me by the Agricultural Industries Confederation in discussions regarding on-farm grain sampling for this coming harvest. The vast majority of merchants will no longer be sending out grain sampling personnel to our farms this year and health and safety risks are being cited as the main reason for this decision.

So, for the second harvest running growers will be responsible for sampling their own grain in readiness for merchant collections. It is imperative for all growers to have grain sampling procedures in place so it can be done safely and accurately and there is plenty of good guidance available from the AHDB, the NFU and merchant guidance for this to be achieved, so please use them.

With our busiest period approaching we need to reflect and prepare with health, safety and wellbeing at the forefront of our minds. Because it’s not just about bad statistics – it’s about people’s lives, our own and those of friends, family and colleagues.

JUNE 2021

AF June p80 Talking Policy TR AD KH.indd 2

20/05/2021 14:46

PODCAST CROPTEC

Farming in a changing climate

A

rable farmers do not need reminding that weather is possibly the biggest challenge they face, and just in the last few years we have seen one of the hottest summers on record in 2018, one of the mildest and wettest winters in 2019 and two exceptionally dry springs in a row.

In this episode of Crop it Like it’s Hot, How can arable farmers be more resilient to adverse weather?, Alice Dyer speaks to

Prof Jenni Dungait, of Soil Health Expert.

Social media JFor the latest news and updates, follow us on social media: LinkedIn: rThe CropTec Show

Get CPD points JMembers of the BASIS register can now receive one CPD point for tuning into the podcast.

Listen in to the podcast to find out how.

More information

the Met Office about how weather patterns are changing and the outlook for the rest of the season.

She also hears how climate change presents challenges, but

JCrop it Like it’s Hot is produced by Arable Farming and CropTec Show. It aims

to provide an alternative way of keeping up with agronomy and arable developments.

also opportunities in terms of the crops we grow and how we, as farmers, can be more resilient

to the adverse weather we face through improving soil health and using data to farm better.

Prof Derek Stewart, James Hutton Institute.

Grahame Madge, senior press officer at the Met Office.

Harry Atkinson, Sencrop business development manager.

Twitter: r@ArableFarming r@CropTecShow r@AliceInWellies Facebook: rCropTec Show rArable Farming

Listen in JThe podcast, sponsored

by Yara, can be downloaded via croptecshow.com/ podcast or you can listen through Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts or your favourite podcatcher.

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BASIS news

The latest news for BASIS and FACTS-qualified farmers and advisers.

New qualification for managing game shoots

A

new course designed for a wide range of people involved in operating and managing game shoots is being launched, with successful participants being awarded the BASIS Certificate in Game Management, developed in conjunction with the Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust (GWCT).

Greg Hopkinson, BASIS head of business development, says: “Like every aspect of farm and woodland management, the game shooting sector will increasingly face demands to demonstrate positive management in relation to biodiversity and sustainability, as well as providing viable returns to land owners and shoot operators.

“The sector plays a significant role in Britain’s rural economy.

Game shooting takes place on over 14 million hectares, is estimated to be worth some £2.5 billion and is growing in popularity.

Professional “As more people participate actively, the area of land managed for game increases each year. Therefore, it makes sense for those hosting and operating shooting enterprises to have professional qualifications and for the industry as a whole to ensure it is adhering to the codes of practice and standards of an important part of the economy.”

The new certificate consists of

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The certificate consists of six modules, including predation control in game and wildlife management.

six modules – predation control in game and wildlife management, farmland habitat management, woodland management, establishing and managing game crops, sustainable game bird releasing and game shoot management and self-regulation.

It is intended for those who have some experience in game keeping and shoot management rather than complete novices.

Roger Draycott, GWCT’s director of advisory and education, says: “Lots of effort has been put into educating gamekeepers starting out in their careers, but this is the first course aimed at more experienced individuals.

“This qualification is tailored for all levels of gamekeeper, as

well as estate managers, landowners, agents, shoot managers and shoot captains. In fact, it is aimed at everyone who has responsibility for running a shoot.”

Training Training is delivered over three days at the GWCT’s demonstration farm and shoot at the Allerton Project in Leicestershire, with a range of modules involving both practical and lecture-based sessions.

The course can be taken in one three-day block, or as single days spread over 12 months to suit those who cannot fit three consecutive days in. A full three-day course delivered by GWCT currently costs £685.

At the end of the training,

candidates are required to take an exam consisting of both multiple choice and short answer questions.

Successfully completing this exam results in candidates gaining the new Certificate in Game Management.

“Achieving a recognised qualification through formal training is a great way for individuals to ensure they are following current best practice, developing their knowledge and progressing their career,” adds Mr Hopkinson.

Beginning in May 2021, a total of four courses are currently planned for the year ahead.

Details of how to MORE ONLINE book are available on the events section of the GWCT website at: gwct.org.uk

JUNE 2021 18/05/2021 19:23

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