Tim Parton — Farmer Focus Writer

Regular farmer focus contributor and one of UK regen ag’s most prominent biological-first practitioners. Known for replacing fungicides with brewed biology, sap testing, and chasing a fungal-dominated soil. Cited by John Cherry as the influence behind Lannock Manor going fungicide-free in 2021.

📰 Read articles by Tim Parton — Brewood Farms, Staffordshire on Direct Driller → View author archive

Issue 14 — Compost Extract, No Fungicides, and a Crimper Roller (July 2021)

A confident column reporting on a smooth wet-winter, a productive drilling spring, and the addition of brewed biology and compost extract at drilling.

Compost Extract Workflow

  • Slurry mixed in a bucket to release fungal spores and bacteria
  • Top-hat filter removes large debris
  • Tipped into the drill tank and applied via peristaltic pumps with no in-line filtration (filtered systems block — main reason for the switch to peristaltic)
  • Remaining debris goes down with the seed in the trench

Bio-meter Results

Currently reading roughly 1:6:1 fungal:bacterial — credits replacing fungicides with biology for shifting the soil toward fungal dominance.

“Intelligent Farming” Not Low Input

“I do not class myself as a low input farmer; I class what I and other farmers are doing as intelligent farming, since we are making decisions to obtain the best yields but with a lower input cost… I would still be prepared to pay for more expensive inputs if deemed necessary to obtain that high profit.”

Edaphos Trials

Working with Mike and Nick from Edaphos:

  • Wheat with no soil-applied N
  • Spring barley and OSR with just 21 kg/ha soil-applied N
  • Crops monitored with a chlorophyll meter + sap/tissue tests; foliar N applied to top up shortfalls
  • “A plant’s limitation is always its lowest deficiency”

Crimper Roller from Trevor Tappin

A new addition for years when frost can’t be relied on to terminate cover crops with a 3am Cambridge roll. Aim: push further from herbicides.

Drilling on the Green

  • Generally works — except spring barley, where Tim destroys covers at least three weeks before drilling
  • A small accidental patch this year (sprayer GPS failed to engage) was drilled on the green and showed clear crop suppression — so the rule holds
  • Spring beans drilled on the green with a good cover were “the only place on the farm where moisture could still be found during April” — sees crimping as the moisture-retention answer for dry springs

Carbon Logic

“We can all be sequestering a lot of carbon with cover crops etc, but if your footprint is still high you could easily be in a position of having very little to sell.”

[Source: dd-issue-14, 2026-04-13]

Issue 18 — 14 Trials, Night Spraying, and Flea Beetles That Disappeared (July 2022)

A Spring 2022 update with 14 trials running and the OSR (canola) story as the centrepiece.

The flea-beetle non-event

Canola was drilled the first week of September into a field “crawling with flea beetle” — even Tim was concerned. He started the plant off with placed balanced nutrition:

“Much to my delight the flea beetle disappeared, since no food was available because the plant was synthesising correctly, putting the right sugars out as exudates and not having a build-up of mono saccharides (within the plant), which is pure food for the beetles.”

This is one of the cleanest articulations Tim has given of his Tom-Dykstra-style “healthy plants don’t get attacked” thesis in a Farmer Focus column.

A new clover problem to monetise

All canola was drilled with white clover, Berseem clover and Crimson clover. The Crimson clover proved aggressive and took over in patches. Rather than spray it out, Tim has ordered a new riddle for his grain cleaner so he can clean it out and re-grow it for sale: “ever the opportunist.”

Wheat with 50 kg N + sap-driven amide N programme

  • Solid N at just 50 kg/ha at the start
  • Plant monitored through NovaCrop sap testing
  • Top-up N as amide N from Aiva Fertilisers, applied alongside whatever nutrient the plant needs to keep the cation balance right
  • No fungicides used at the time of writing — wax on the wheat leaves “simply glowing and standing proud”

Spring barley with organic amino acids — and night-time foliars

  • Spring barley grown with amino acids alone — this time an organic form from Mike Harrington, more carbon-positive (so more carbon to sell)
  • Almost all foliars now applied at night: no UV scorch, no biological-terminator UV effect, and the plant does 80% of its growing while the population is asleep — Tim says testing backs this up

Spring beans — cover crop, crimper, compost tea

  • Drilled on the green using the crimper roller built by Trevor Tappin with each roller independent and air-set pressure to suit the crop
  • Patchy cover crops still required a low-dose glyphosate finish
  • Beans drilled with compost tea from a 1:1 fungal:bacterial compost made on farm in his new extractor/brewer

The Green Farm Collective conference

#GFC22 was held on 25 May with Trinity AgTech as a partner and sponsors including Edaphos, Oakbank, Severn Trent Water, Soil First Farming, Kings Crops and Indigro. Trinity launched their grassland module for permanent grassland; Severn Trent launched new catchment area schemes for farmers in their catchment areas.

[Source: dd-issue-18, 2026-04-13]

Issue 20 — The 240 kg N Plateau and a Bird Hide (January 2023)

A wide-ranging Farmer Focus after another dry spring/summer. The headline agronomic finding: the Edaphos-run N trial showed 240 kg N/ha did not yield any more than 160 kg N/ha, and both were effectively equal to Tim’s farm-average 120 kg N/ha plus 10 L foliar N. Tim credits a combination of his carbon-rich soils producing more N internally and the dry year not allowing the excess N to express anyway — either way, the result was a big cross-farm saving and a reduced carbon footprint per tonne.

The grazed spring beans disaster

Where Tim had not grazed the cover crop and drilled on the green using the Trevor Tappin crimper roller, he got 4.8 t/ha of spring beans with no herbicides, fungicides or insecticides. Where sheep had grazed the same cover crop beforehand, yields were half that. His verdict:

“Has this changed my opinion of sheep? Yes and No… if I had a forward crop that needed reducing… I would use sheep as a tool to manage the crop! Will I be grazing in front of Beans? Defiantly not!”

Still no fungicides

Fungicides are “a distant memory… the difference in residue breakdown since ceasing their use is remarkable with debris gone very quickly digested by fungi as nature intended.” Wheat yields ranged 7.5–12 t/ha; the top yield came from the foliar-fed block at 50 kg soil-applied + 28 L foliar N.

Corn Marigolds, Corn Flowers and a Bionutrient Meter

A new crop this year: growing Corn Marigolds and Corn Flowers for seed for Yourgreen — novel combine work cutting the crops green. Tim has also invested in a Bionutrient meter and tested his wheat against a conventional sample — “guess which came out top by a long margin!”

The farm now trades biodiversity through Green Farm Collective, with cover crops and bird-food margins generating direct income. A new bird hide has been installed on-farm to support that storytelling alongside tree-planting days for sponsors’ customers. Tim closes with a warning that farmers should not “sell ourselves short on the Carbon / Biodiversity market”.

[Source: dd-issue-20, 2026-04-13]

Appearances

Issues 7, 9, 11, 14, 18, 20, 23, 27

Related Pages