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How To Start Drilling For £8K
Clive Bailye’s seed drill of choice is his 6m John Deere 750A , which has been used exclusively for 3-4 seasons. Last year, with an increased acreage, the founder and publisher of this Direct Driller magazine thought a second seed drill was necessary. Having just the one machine was a risk and in a difficult season would mean drilling was delayed. He looked around and found a good condition Horsch CO6 tine drill advertised in Germany.
Words and pictures by Mike Donovan
After delivery he rebuilt the coulters to a narrow profile so as to reduce soil disturbance. He says the tine drill is very useful driling after straw crops such as osr and also through the straw on second crop cereals.
Buying the drill from a German farmer was not particularly complicated, and provided him with a higher spec machine than Horsh sell in the UK. The seed dart tyres are much wider, and the machine is fitted with blockage monitors as well as full width front packers and also a liquid fert application system.
A sheaf of photos were taken, and Clive then asked for some of specific parts to show wear. The deal was done at under £5,000 which Clive says is the market value of these machines which are too large for small farmers to buy. Original owners like to buy new and sell when the machine is still in good condition.
Narrow tines with wear tiles
@Clive knew he wanted to make changes, substituting the Horsch tines and coulters for something far narrower, and has ended up getting his own design of tine made, which has a wear tile made from Ferobide, far harder than tungsten. The drill is on the farm primarily for osr and 2nd crop cereals drilled into chopped straw and the 25cm spacing is okay for these crops.
Comments on Clive’s on-line forum, TFF, said the drill many not be so good with beans, as the slot is a mere 12mm wide. And in barley the spacing may well be too wide as it needs to be thick. Clive points out that the seed pipe can actually be a bit wider than 12mm as it is in the shadow of the point. It would be good to have the option of using it for beans.
Above left: The cheap CO6 is being calibrated ready for its first outing
Above right: The adapted Horsch is being filled by the home built drill logistics trailer with seed and liquid starter fert.
Getting around the German instructions
The Horsch came, of course, with a control box and instructions in German. More on-line discussion revealed that English instructions were available on the Horsch website, and another explained that Horsch was sourcing some of these parts from Agton in Canada anyway. Zealman from New Zealand explained that the button marked with callipers should be held down for around 5 seconds. The menu is where you adjust the tramline sequence, valve layout and row numbers.
Ball hitch is a continental standard and provides a positive connection between tractor and drill
The Stocks Wizard has a rotor modified for Avadex which otherwise leaks everywhere
A Stocks Wizard is on the back of the drill and used for Avadex. Here again the knowledge of actual farmers is helpful. Alistair Nelson warned that the rotor and the surrounding shroud need to be changed, and he got good advice “from Rick at Stocks”. Clive has the same setup on the 750A and says that the Avadex leaks everywhere unless the modification is made. The drill was acquired and modified in 2016 and the results have been excellent.
The machine went through the residue without many problems and having the second drill has meant more timely planting. Clive has shown that moving into No-Till is not the expensive exercise so many farmers think it might be. The total cost, after modifications which included replacing all tines and coulters, was under £8,000.
Author Mike Donovan writes: we have featured a number of home made direct drills in @Practical Farm Ideas, and are always interested in seeing more. Please contact mike [email protected] or 07778877514.
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Agronomist in Focus – Dick Neale
How I Manage Cover Crop Desiccation on Wet Soils
This year’s excessively wet soils are actually more likely to be dried by the presence of cover crops than kept wetter. However, it’s crucial that sun and wind are allowed to reach the soil surface to ensure adequate drying before drilling.
Many cover crops may have already been desiccated using glyphosate or grazing, but in some cases, late establishment has meant limited growth, and spray-off opportunities have been few and far between. The SFI rules for overwinter covers also mean termination isn’t realistically possible until mid-January, and with the challenging weather, accessing fields for spraying has been particularly difficult this year.
In some instances, I advise that thinner cover crops might be better left until closer to drilling for desiccation. That said, this really depends on the species in the mix, soil type, the following crop, and its expected drilling date. It’s also worth remembering that blackgrass regrowth on bare soil can be treated under the same desiccation rules as cover crops.
Desiccation Options
Grazing with sheep is becoming an increasingly popular approach, and for those planning to use this method, the Hutchinsons Maxi Graze cover crop mix is an ideal choice. However, there are a few key considerations to bear in mind.
It’s important that the grazier understands that many cover crops are grown for soil conditioning rather than just for sheep grazing. Sheep will graze the top growth very quickly and will need to be moved on before they cause soil surface damage. For this reason, grazing cover crops requires about twice the area compared to traditional stubble turnip crops, where sheep are left on to clear the tubers. The tubers put condition on the sheep, whereas the top growth serves more as a maintenance feed.
This distinction must be clearly understood and accounted for, as it means more work for the grazier—moving fences, supplying water, and managing stock—for less weight gain in the sheep. Grazing fees should reflect this balance between soil conditioning, cover crop processing, and feed value for the grazier. Also, only sheep older than six months should graze multispecies covers. Ewes with lambs at foot should not graze them, as milk taint can occur.
Glyphosate Application
When using glyphosate, it’s essential to apply adequate rates—at least 1000g minimum—along with an adjuvant like Spryte Aqua CF to ensure effectiveness. Low temperatures and shading can impact performance, and legumes such as crimson clover, berseem clover, and vetch often survive treatment. However, this is rarely an issue if the herbicide used in the following crop is effective or if the next crop is a tall species like beans or maize or a smothering crop like peas.
Kyleo is often applied in combination with additional glyphosate (around 3 l/ha) and should be used where surviving brassica or phacelia could affect the following crop. This approach, however, may require expensive post-emergence herbicide treatments—if any suitable options exist.
Kyleo is particularly helpful where a large cover crop bulk needs to be reduced quickly to improve the drill’s ability to handle the residue. The timing of treatment in relation to sowing is critical for safe establishment.
Shark can also be a useful addition to glyphosate, particularly for species that are more tolerant of glyphosate. It’s especially valuable where nettles are present in cover crops on lighter soils and is also effective on brassica species. However, it’s important to remember that Shark requires a one-month interval before planting the next crop.
Cultivation Considerations
Cultivation remains an option for terminating cover crops and preparing the seedbed for drilling. If a drill cannot handle the conditions left by the cover crop, then cultivation may be necessary to avoid the risk of crop failure—after all, you only get one shot at establishing a successful spring crop!
That said, it’s best to do only what’s necessary. The real benefit of the cover crop is largely underground, so if ploughing is required, plough as shallowly as possible or work the top just enough to facilitate accurate sowing. Since cover crops are rooted, many drills will actually cope well with the residue, as it doesn’t ‘drag’ in the same way as loose trash.
I often recommend running an empty drill over the field early on to test whether it can handle the conditions before making any cultivation decisions. This simple step can help determine whether further intervention is needed and can save both time and effort in the long run.
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Farmer Focus – Tom Martin
April 2025
I always say farming is the fourth industry I’ve worked in—but it’s the one that feels most like home. Before I found myself knee-deep in cover crops and grazing rotations, I was in offices negotiating film rights at Universal Pictures. From cinema releases to Blu-ray deals in Portugal, I had a foot in global entertainment. But in 2015, I came back to the family farm in Cambridgeshire. Since then, I’ve been learning the land, trying things, failing a fair bit, and doing everything I can to make farming work.
We run a mixed family farm—mainly arable, with wheat, barley, beans, and oilseed rape in the rotation. We’ve got grass and sheep too, which we graze over winter using a partnership with local graziers. It’s very much a “we” operation: I farm with my wife and my parents. Though I do much of the work nowadays, I feel very supported; you can’t put a price on a good field tea!
When I came back to the farm, my dad had already taken the first big step. About 25 years ago, he moved away from full inversion ploughing to a sort of shallow cultivation approach. That evolution made the jump to no-till a little less jarring, at least structurally. I’ve just helped push the system further along the regenerative road. These days, we’re effectively no-till, with occasional exceptions for tramline smoothing or the odd bumpy patch, but we sold the plough some years ago and haven’t missed it yet.
There’s a temptation in this world to only talk about the good stuff—nice crops, neat hedges, straight tramlines—but I’ve come to believe our failures teach us more. I did a Groundswell talk called Learn From My Mistakes. I showed nothing but disasters: flooded corners, bare patches, crops that never came. That felt pretty exposing, but it also kicked off some of the best conversations I’ve ever had with other farmers.
One year, I was looking at a field of wheat that looked tired. Residue from two harvests ago still hadn’t broken down. The plants were pale. Everything on the soil tests looked fine. Tissue tests too. But the soil wasn’t doing its job. I applied a bit of molasses and a microbial inoculant—just trying something I’d read about—and ten days later, the crop turned dark green. That was a lightbulb moment. Something had shifted. Since then, I’ve taken soil life seriously. We might not always understand every bit of the biology, but we ignore it at our peril.
We’ve moved to multi-variety mixes for wheat—not because it’s easy, but because it builds resilience. Seven or eight Group 1s in one field helps suppress disease and spreads risk. Unfortunately, it also confuses the market. Millers aren’t too keen—doesn’t fit their specs. So we’re working on creating routes to market for that kind of grain, something that reflects the value of diverse, low-input, regenerative systems.
I’d love to see a milling supply chain that embraces diversity rather than fights it. If I had three wishes, that would be one. The other two? Mandatory farm visits for every politician in Westminster, and—well—world peace. But let’s at least aim for one out of three.
We also grow hybrid barley, spring barley, oilseed rape, and beans. We’re tweaking the rotation every year, especially to manage our worthy adversary, blackgrass. Given we’re only ten miles from the old Blackgrass Research Centre, we’re well aware of what our soils are capable of—both good and bad. But the system’s working. We’ve had flea beetle in every rapeseed field for six years but no serious losses. We use fenugreek, bursim clover, buckwheat, and silicon to keep them in check. That, and letting the system do the work.
We don’t have our own livestock year-round, but I’d love to get there. Right now, we’re working with neighbours to graze sheep on our winter covers and even on cereal crops if the weather’s right. I reckon we need more people on farms, more small businesses using the land, and more life integrated into arable systems.
We also bring in a million bees every year. I tell people we’ve got a million head of livestock—not counting the worms. It gets a laugh, but it’s also true. Those bees are part of the system, just like the soil fungi and the hedgerow birds.
We’ve started using biochar too—a mix of South African eucalyptus charcoal and chicken litter. I’ve got dreams of creating a bit of terra preta here on our cold, heavy clays. It might not happen overnight, but that’s what keeps me going. Constant tinkering, small trials, and the hope that one day it clicks.
I’m not organic. I’m not conventional either. I sometimes call myself “non-binary” when it comes to farming systems—not because I’m trying to be clever, but because I genuinely don’t fit into either camp. We still use some synthetic inputs, but far less than we used to. We’ve cut our artificial nitrogen, and we’re using things like sulfur, silicon, molasses, and occasionally even milk to feed the soil life. (That last one’s still in testing—and yes, I’m checking the regulations first!)
The point is, it’s not about purity. Regenerative farming is about direction. It’s about moving toward systems that work with nature, not against it. It’s about resilience, diversity, and—most importantly—focus.
That last one’s key. One of the best definitions of regenerative farming I’ve heard is this: it’s a mindset before it’s a method. You’ve got to be present. You’ve got to observe. You can’t farm by calendar anymore, or copy last year’s agronomy sheet. You’ve got to respond to the context in front of you.
We’ve cut our diesel use significantly. Establishment time is way down—sometimes we can get wheat drilled in 18 minutes per hectare, compared to the hour-plus we used to need. We’re not burning diesel on cultivations we don’t need. We’re not putting inputs on because it’s “that time of year.” We’re making observations, using tissue tests, and then deciding.
Financially, it’s made little difference. We’ve kept yield steady but reallocated costs. It’s not without challenges, but when I walk a field now and feel the sponginess underfoot, or see clear water instead of brown run-off in the gateways, I know we’re on the right path.
We’ve planted 600 fruit trees and 200 nut trees, introduced habitat corridors, and linked up pollinator strips across the farm. When I hear skylarks overhead or spot a barn owl gliding along a hedge, it feels like proof of concept. Regeneration in action.
If you’re looking to try this approach, my advice would be: don’t start with your worst field. Start with your best. Don’t expect a silver bullet. This is about systems, not fixes. Bring someone with you—someone who’ll challenge you, help you troubleshoot, and remind you why you started when it inevitably goes wrong.
Regenerative farming isn’t easy, but it’s fulfilling. And I genuinely believe it’s the future. Not because it’s trendy, but because it works—and because it makes me a happier farmer.
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Make time to plan the best way forward for your farming business
The time has come to assess how you will be able to farm in the future and calculate the best options for your business going forward, says Jeff Claydon, Suffolk arable farmer and inventor of the Claydon Opti-Till® direct seeding system.
Feb 2025
Here in Suffolk, grey skies and cold weather have characterised the first few weeks of 2025, but despite little in the way of rain the soil surface has remained wet, making field work impossible. After a dry autumn and winter with few hard frosts and relatively warm temperatures, crops on our Hanslope series soils are faring exceptionally well. In no small part this is because last spring we invested £30,000 in new plastic drains to correct small areas of sub-optimal drainage highlighted by the extremely wet weather in autumn 2023.
The leading tines on our Claydon drill are enormously beneficial in allowing water to move from the surface down through the soil profile, but in a few areas the laterals were at capacity and unable to accept more water. After identifying areas where extra capacity was needed, and others where old drains had reached the end of their working life, we installed new ones. After harvest, our new Claydon Mole Drainer was used on all the oilseed rape land and in some other areas, around 200 acres in total.
The effect of this work has been transformational, and all crops are looking fantastic but there is still more to do. Some fields were too dry to mole drain in the autumn, so our goal is to go through the standing wheat this spring. Many years ago I was advised that this approach is preferable as moles formed at this time will set hard through the summer, perform better and last longer.
Some might have reservations about mole draining through a standing crop because of the potential damage, but it should not be of concern. In 1981, I went through wheat at Growth Stage 30 using our 90hp International TD18 crawler and it appeared that its steel tracks had massacred the crop. Overnight, it poured with rain and remained wet, so I was unable to finish the top part of the field. Come harvest, our recently developed Claydon Yield-o-Meter on-combine grain monitoring device highlighted the much higher yield from the mole drained area.
Last spring our Mole Drainer was used in standing winter wheat at up to GS31and come June we could barely see where it had been. Our 246hp Fendt 724 Vario has no problem pulling the new Mole Drainer, but its bigger, heavier brother, a 415hp Fendt 942 Vario will be used for this operation. It doesn’t even know it is pulling the mole drainer, even at full depth, and the tractor’s weight and wide 750-section tyres virtually eliminate wheel slip in dry conditions. Our Claydon 12m Cambridge rolls will then be used to level the field and push any stones into the ground to avoid them being picked up by the combine.
Establishing a short-term cover crop on the Claydon Farm using the 6m Evolution direct drill and Evolution Front Hopper on the Fendt 942 Vario. Seeding coulters fitted to the drill’s leading tines allow a companion crop, in this case beans, to be sown at the correct depth. TAKING A NEW APPROACH
Our autumn-drilled crops are in excellent shape and look full of potential. There’s little difference between winter wheat drilled at the start of October, when it was very wet, and that which went in at the end of the month when it was dry. Nor is there any difference in establishment noticeable on land where wheat and spring oat straw was chopped compared with where the oat straw was baled.
Stem weevil, cabbage stem flea beetle and pigeons have long been the nemesis of oilseed rape on our farm. Last autumn, the crop established very easily but it failed to grow away strongly in the spring and closer inspection highlighted the presence of cabbage stem flea beetle larvae and stem weevil which decimated large areas, severely impacting the overall yield. The agronomic and financial risks involved in growing oilseed rape are now far too high at current values, so we cannot afford to have it in our rotation.
Last season’s lacklustre oilseed rape crop allowed weeds to germinate so instead of following it with wheat as would normally be the case we are taking a different approach. The early harvest provided an ideal opportunity to mole drain rape stubbles in near-ideal conditions and at the end of July we drilled a short-term cover crop, Hutchinsons’ Maxi CatchCrop. Having modified our 6m Evolution drill with separate seeding coulters fitted behind the leading tines we drilled a companion crop of spring beans directly into moist soil at 75mm – 100mm deep at the same time as drilling the small seeds shallower with the seeding coulter.
The short-term cover crop should have been terminated at the end of September and immediately been replanted with a winter cover crop, but after applying for SFI in July we did not receive approval until November, forcing us to go out on a limb. We decided that land which had been into oilseed rape would go into spring oats, giving us all winter to clean up volunteers and weeds, as well as reducing slugs.
Cover crops in fields with higher levels of weeds were terminated on 5 November, which encouraged another flush, and these will be taken out before drilling the spring oats. The balance of the cover crop area was sprayed off on 23 December but remained slightly green at the end of January. Due to the cold weather it took until 10 February to die off completely, but as soon as the weather turns a little warmer we will apply another dose of glyphosate to give the Elsoms Lion spring oats a completely clean start.
Until now our rotation has been 50% winter wheat, 25% oilseed rape and 25% spring oats, but for 2025 harvest we have switched 120 acres of wheat land into second wheats and with first wheats following spring oats the balance is now two-thirds winter wheat, one-third spring oats. We have also replaced the Group 4 variety LG Skyscraper, which had been a mainstay of our winter wheat area for many years, with Elsoms’ new Group 3 ‘Bamford’, which was drilled at 190kg/ha, giving approximately 350 seeds/m2.
This cover crop was drilled after wheat had been harvested and was sprayed off on 23 November. As soon as conditions allow it will be direct drilled with Elsoms Lion spring oats. We began drilling winter wheat with our 6m Evolution direct drill and new 2750-litre front hopper, which gave us the benefit of the choice of four different products that can all be applied at the same time, with many options of placements. On 5 October but intermittent rain from then on meant that progress was sporadic, so it was 26 October before we finished. All the winter wheat received a full complement of Avadex granules plus two pre-emergence products which went on between 15 October and 13 November using 90,000 litres of rainwater collected from the roof of our factory, leaving the tanks dry in November. As I write this on 20 February, all crops have emerged well and are looking very consistent, even the headlands, but with wet ground conditions and low temperatures we have yet to apply any nitrogen.
ADAPTING TO CHANGING TIMES
The farming sector is facing extremely challenging times and to remain viable businesses must adapt to the profound political, legislative and financial changes which are taking place. Going forward, it will be difficult to farm conventionally because there will be more time pressure to do all the cultivations, produce cover crops and be able to establish cash crops in the autumn. In the current environment the saying ‘If you don’t change anything, nothing changes’ is very appropriate and if you keep doing the same things you’ve always done, you will keep getting the same results.
After the previous crop of oilseed rape had been harvested this field was direct drilled with Hutchinsons Maxi CatchCrop mix. Having been sprayed off on 23 December this is how it looked on 18 February. Elsoms Lion spring oats will be direct drilled into it at the first opportunity. On the Claydon farm the massive changes to the Basic Payment System in England reduced our annual income by approximately £60,000, forcing us to consider the options. Having invested time and resources to evaluate what we could do we identified over £94,000 in potential gains under the Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI) but securing them meant changing what we do and how we do it. To recap the actions I outlined in the last issue of Direct Driller, overall, our annual SFI income will be worth a total of £94,403, or £370/ha, as detailed below, with further information available at claydondrill.com/grant-funding
- Year/block 1, the grant for no-till establishment (SOH1 – £73/ha) and growing a catch crop (SOH3 -£163/ha) followed by winter wheat with a companion crop (CIPM3 – £55/ha), will bring £24,735 in SFI payments.
- Year/block 2, growing a second wheat, the same approach and payments will apply, generating £24,735.
- Year/block 3, with the area in spring oats, we will have a post-harvest catch crop (SOH3 – £163/ha), followed by a winter cover crop (SAM2 – £129/ha), then direct Claydon drill spring oats with a companion crop (CIPM3 – £55/ha). The No Insecticide payment (CIPM4) will add £45/ha and the no-till establishment (SOH1 – £73/ha) grant will take the total payment in Year 3 to £39,525.
This 80-acre block of Elsoms Bamford was the first winter wheat to go in on the Claydon farm last autumn and should produce an extremely good crop come harvest. Drilled at 190kg/ha on 5 October, it received Avadex plus two pre-emergence sprays to ensure good weed control. The even germination across the field is evident, even on headlands, and the strong, clean rows show up clearly in the spring sunshine, but with temperatures still barely above freezing when this photograph was taken on 18 February the crop had yet to receive its first application of nitrogen. Annual SFI rotational options payments will total £88,995, in addition we can claim £5408 in Whole Farm Management Payments. These comprise £1,627 for Soil Management Plans under CSAM1 (£6/ha + £97), £652 for a Nutrient Management Plan (CNUM1), £1,129 for an Integrated Management Plan (CIPM1) and Management Payments of £2000 in Year 1, £1000 in Year 2 and the same in Year 3.
Going forward, we will be taking advantage of SFI option SOH3, which involves sowing a short term catch crop from June to August, qualifying for a payment of £163/ha. This will be sprayed off and winter wheat direct drilled with our Evolution direct drill, claiming a further £73/ha under SFI option SOH1. This incentivises the use of no-tillage farming techniques to minimise soil disturbance, its stated purpose being ‘to improve soil health, fertility, structure, soil water storage and reduce runoff, help to keep organic matter and nutrients in the soil, provide benefits for carbon, water quality and biodiversity, and protect historic environment features’. At the same time, using the front hopper, we can sow peas or beans through separate seeding coulters on the leading tines, allowing us to claim a companion crop payment of £55/ha under SFI option CIPM3.
On the area going into oats we terminate the summer cover crop at the end of September and immediately Claydon drill an over-wintered cover crop to claim a further £129/ha under SFI option CSAM2, plus a further £55/ha under CIPM3 for drilling a companion crop of peas or beans with the oats in the spring.
The high level of worm activity in the soil is evident, as is one of the beans which were sown as a companion crop to qualify for an SFI grant and fix some nitrogen. NO TIME TO DELAY
In February 2024, the Rural Payments Agency (RPA) announced the Farming Equipment Technology Fund (FETF) grants, together with the values which could be claimed towards direct drills and straw harrows, ranging from £8000 for a Straw Harrow to £40,000 for a seed and fertiliser drill, for which Claydon machinery is eligible.
In some areas where previously the drainage was sub-standard new plastic drains overlaid with gravel were installed in spring 2025 and the new Claydon Mole Drainer used to enable water to move down from the surface, leaving hardly a mark in the crop. Information about FETF grants for 2025 has yet to be announced and like many others we are waiting to hear whether they will be available and, if so, to what level. Quite understandably, farmers are waiting to see what happens before placing their order for new machinery, but following an announcement there could be severe logistical problems in terms of obtaining the equipment you want. In these tough times dealers are understandably being careful about managing stock levels and therefore are unlikely to be able to supply exactly what you want ‘off the shelf’ so if you can order now I would strongly suggest that you do so.
Delaying ordering machinery until details of the FETF grants for 2025 are published could mean it is too late to take advantage of SFI due to extended manufacturing lead times, etc, and farmers may find that they will lose out on both counts. The difference between the value of the SFI payments which you could take advantage of with the right equipment compared to those of the FETF grant is considerable, so start planning now. View the FETF grant as ‘luck money’ and if both FETF and SFI become available they could more than pay for your new Claydon product in the first year!
Failure to think carefully about changing your farming system to take advantage of these new opportunities could mean losing out financially in a big way and ultimately losing money. The Claydon ‘THINK’ campaign, details of which are on our website, emphasises the importance of reviewing current systems and planning ahead. It highlights how reductions in fuel, operational, labour and ownership costs allow the Claydon Opti-Till® System to reduce establishment costs dramatically with the addition of SFI payments outlined, and the well-known cost savings over other establishment systems it will put you on track of reliable profitability, combined with soil health, extra yields and more time to enjoy life.
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Farmer Focus – Neil White
Apr 2025
I will attempt to keep this politics free.
I suppose the joy of farming is that no two years are the same, and 2025’s weather has definitely started on a more positive note than 2024. As I write this, I am finished my spring sowing and it’s all rolled, one full month ahead of last year and two weeks ahead of 2023.
Last harvest seems a long time ago, but it was interesting in many ways. The strip tilled winter barley which had looked surprisingly good all year, and had even attracted compliments from visiting farmers, was the real casualty from the lack of sunshine at the crucial stage of grain fill.
The yield was very disappointing with the large heads only filling around 60% – 70% and the rest ‘lights’ blown from the combine or screenings. After many years of full OSR crops, in 24 I had some very mixed crops, the variable rate slug pellets worked well again at sowing, but the OSR did suffer due to wet feet and relentless pigeon damage. Luckily the wheat had matured that bit later than the barley and grain fill was not a problem with bushel weights up as high as 85 and some of the best-looking wheat samples I have grown, with yields around average or just above.
Establishing spring crops I thought was going to be the biggest challenge. I had mostly overwintered stubbles, some with chopped straw some without, and cover crops sown after wheat and barley. One cover crop sown in August was very good but the one sown in September was really poor, reminding me that we have limited options and a limited time window to establish cover up here in Scotland. I had a demo Valtra tractor in the autumn, sadly only available after all the hard work was done, so I put the straw rake on and ran over all my winter stubble again before it got too wet. I try and do this now at least once to chit any cereals and weeds that are in the top layer. This raking was the only disturbance between harvest and sowing. I don’t subsoil because, when testing with the penetrometer I am finding very little compaction. I also believe it is very difficult to find good enough conditions to allow it to be done without adding compaction. My soils are noticeably changing as my tillage has reduced. The soil is of a more even consistency across the field, I’m not saying it is all uniform, Berwickshire’s soil definitely isn’t that, but the bad, cheesy, clay areas are beginning to break down more easily in line with the lighter sandy loam areas. The fact I didn’t have too many compaction issues to start with had helped me get on the ground last spring, but it was still a long wait. Seedbeds weren’t too bad, and the crops established well, made average yields and hit the quality spec, which is key.
I did some green fertiliser trials through Simpsons Malt on my Diablo spring barley. This is fertiliser produced with green energy, the extra cost covered by the trade, for now. The fertiliser looks and spreads the same as any other but manages to call itself ‘green’, I think there are many lessons for agriculture, in the interesting ways other industries are looking at their carbon footprints! I don’t see airlines taking responsibility for the airports carbon footprint, but they rely on them as a necessary part of the service just like I do with fertilisers.
My spring barley is all strip tilled and the comparison between the crops established into overwintered stubble and cover crop, surprisingly, hasn’t thrown up any massive differences in the last 3 years. The barley following cover has always been marginally the best yield with the nitrogen and grain quality being the same as the rest. I had always feared that the soil after cover crops would retain too much moisture for the Scottish spring, and where the sheep have grazed the ground would be sticky or baked hard, this doesn’t seem to be a big problem as the grazing opens up the cover and the rooting makes the soil more workable. It does need managing however as the ‘green bridge’ over winter does make an ideal habitat for slugs. Putting slug pellets onto spring barley is a first for me.
Last Autumn was quite kind and we have the luxury, still, of being able to sow relatively early. Craft winter barley was sown around September 10th then Extase wheat September 17th with the Bamford and the Champion after that. Crops were established into good seedbeds and got of to a great start. Some wheat I have in a field with an ongoing drainage problem still suffered some flooding and this will have to be investigated further after harvest. Drainage continues to be a key factor in everything and requires constant attention. Some drainage work in the stubble ahead of spring beans would normally mean the plough would have been used but we flattened the trenches with the digger then I ran the drill over them once not sowing and when I passed over sowing, they seemed to go in well. This has allowed me to do another year of 100% no ploughing, year 3 now. I did start strip till in 2017 but only on some of my ground and only one field has never been ploughed since then. Noticeably, this field is the one in which the soil condition has improved the most.
Last week I had a visit from the Landward team, the BBC Scotland land and farm-based TV program. They were interested in the growing of malting barley direct drilled into a cover crop. The cover had been grazed to reduce the bulk and pay for the seed, then sprayed off. They plan to follow my direct drilled Diablo malting barley crop from sowing to harvest. This was something which took the whole day to put together meaning it wasn’t my most productive day, but I do feel that if someone is interested in farming and what we do, we must engage and give them an honest picture of modern farming. I did try very hard to make the point, I have made large changes to my farming practices. These changes have already saved me money and time, have improved my soils, have lowered my carbon footprint, tick’s boxes for Government goals, and may prove vital for premiums and market access in the future, BUT at the same time, I have also increased my farm output. This is something that shouldn’t be overlooked. Scotland is not a big country and has a very limited arable acreage but a big demand for our produce. We must find the balance. I think using a system like mine, not taking good ground out of production, should be an option. I just hope the crop grows well, and they can find some good content from the lighthearted in cab chat with Arlene, not the chat about whether you can keep wine in the Valtra fridge!
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What makes RL trials tick?
AHDB is demystifying the Recommended Lists for cereals and oilseeds (RL) by bringing the processes that underpin them to life. Jason Pole, AHDB Technical Content Manager, explains.
With a focus on the RL protocols, our winter wheat on trial initiative is revealing how we decide which varieties to sow and recommend – and everything in between. As the core processes share much in common with those used for the other crops on the lists, the initiative is showing what makes the whole RL tick.
Jason Pole from the AHDB We grow some of the most complex crops in the UK. For example, we have 31 fungicide-treated winter wheat yield trials in the ground for harvest 2025. The location (and density) of the trials broadly mirrors commercial cropping areas. For example, about half of the winter wheat trial sites are in the RL East region. This region includes the Terrington St Clement site in Norfolk, which is our focus site for the winter wheat on trial initiative.
A design asset created by AHDB to support the RL winter wheat on trial initiative. Above: A map of RL cereal regions showing winter wheat trial sites for harvest 2024 (harvest 2025 is similar).
The Norfolk site has 50 varieties (35 recommended and 15 candidates), replicated three times (referred to as ‘reps’), which means there are 150 treated variety plots in just this trial. The site also features a fungicide untreated trial.
The full trial series uses various tillage approaches (broadly defined as ‘plough’, ‘deep’ and ‘shallow’). The silty soils at the Norfolk site (following potatoes) were prepared by sub-soiling, with tine-cultivations and power-harrowing used. The winter wheat was drilled on 7 October 2024.
A design asset created by AHDB to support the RL winter wheat on trial initiative. Above: Varieties are grown in plots across three replicates in the trials. Plots are also allocated to blocks to help us account for in-field variation.
We only test the best varieties
Relatively few potential new varieties get listed on the RL and most fall long before the final recommendation step. The GB and NI Variety Lists (VL) are a significant filtering force, which determine whether a variety can be legally sold and marketed in the UK. We can only release yield and agronomic data as part of the RL after a variety has secured a place on these lists. Managed by the Animal & Plant Health Agency (APHA), the process involves two years of testing to check if a variety is new and distinct and establish if it delivers value (by helping to protect breeders’ intellectual property and ensuring farmers get robust and reliable varieties).
A variety needs to pass more rigorous tests to get on the RL. Although there is no limit on the number of candidates going into trial, many get rejected by our RL crop committees. Committee members, who represent the whole supply chain, meet after harvest to review multiple data sources and vote on whether a variety goes into trial.
They consider whether varieties have a better balance of features, than carefully selected comparator varieties (which are already on the RL), and are likely to provide a consistent economic benefit to the industry. The decision-making process is like the one used for final recommendations (although the data is more limited and some of the benchmarks are lower).
A design asset created by AHDB to support the RL winter wheat on trial initiative. Above: A decision tree helps determine if a variety has the potential to provide a consistent economic benefit to the UK cereals or oilseeds industry (process for final recommendations shown).
Provided to the RL project by the breeders as a significant in-kind contribution, VL data is critical. Although yield is important, other agronomic and quality characters are also considered and will trump yield in some circumstances. For milling wheat and malting barley varieties, initial end-user assessments of quality characteristics are a significant determinant on whether a variety will be sown into RL trials.
Usually, a variety is grown in all UK trials for the relevant crop, although sometimes it may only be grown in a specific region, due to low yields in some areas or susceptibility to a regionally important disease.
Fungicide protocols
The RL protocols cover all key areas of agronomy, but one set of protocols generates a lot of debate. The ‘belt-and-braces’ fungicide programmes comply with regulations but do not reflect commercial practice. Is this a problem? Compare the average cost of the RL winter wheat fungicide programme (£260/ha) with the average cost of a commercial programme (£116/ha*) and you may conclude that fungicide treated trial yields are irrelevant.
Certainly, the average RL winter wheat fungicide treated control yield of 10.8 t/ha (2020–2024), is far higher than the five-year average commercial wheat yield of 7.3 t/ha. However, there are many reasons for this performance gap:
- We avoid fields with obvious problems (e.g. weedy fields)
- We sow trials in the best parts of the fields (e.g. not on compacted headlands)
- We discard unrepresentative plots (e.g. plots that establish poorly)
- We carefully manage all inputs to ensure that no variety is disadvantaged (e.g. we follow RB209 to set nitrogen rates)
- Alleyways between plots benefit yields (e.g. less resource competition)
A tril operator inspects an RL cereal trial Margins matter
These days more farmers consider margins, as well as yields (according to recent RL reviews). From this viewpoint, the AHDB/ADAS wheat fungicide margin challenge (harvests 2019–2021) delivered fascinating results.
In the challenge, farmers designed fungicide programmes for a single variety in randomised plot trials, which also included fungicide ‘untreated’ and ‘blockbuster’ plots based on RL protocols. The highest margin programmes frequently yielded close to (even above) the blockbuster programme, demonstrating that the RL fungicide programme produces similar yields to good farm practice.
The programmes also produced a large spread in yields, even for a single fungicide cost point. This illustrates why it would be extremely difficult to pick a ‘farm standard’ programme for the RL trials (which deals with dozens of varieties, with different strengths and weaknesses, over dozens of sites).
Mark Bollebakker in some oilseed rape plots 3 Fife May 2023 Why use such an intensive programme?
We aim to keep disease below 10% infection in all varieties and in all trials (from Cornwall to Aberdeenshire). This helps to reveal variety potential over a range of environmental conditions without variable disease pressures confounding the results.
Each December, BASIS-registered agronomists gather to refine the RL fungicide protocols. As the same core programme is applied across all trials and varieties, the fungicides work harder on some varieties and in some locations than others (to level the playing field). For example, rust fungicides used on varieties with a disease rating of 8 or 9 are unlikely to add to their yields, but they protect the weaker varieties. Similarly, robust doses are needed for sites with high disease pressure, which adds cost (with diminishing yield returns at most sites, compared with lower rates).
A recent review of RL fungicide programmes concluded that the current approach is best to provide robust data to help farmers select and manage varieties, when combined with fungicide untreated yields and disease resistance ratings.
Unlock the power of the RL
AHDB has committed almost £10m to the current five-year RL project phase (2021–26). However, the total project cost, which includes cash and in-kind contributions from breeders and processors, is closer to £25m.
For the latest information, visit the RL web pages, which feature information on:
- RL winter wheat on trial (ahdb.org.uk/rl-trials)
- RL protocols (ahdb.org.uk/rl-protocols)
- RL publications (ahdb.org.uk/rl)
- RL harvest 2025 results (ahdb.org.uk/harvest-results)
- RL variety open days (ahdb.org.uk/variety-open-days)
- RL app (ahdb.org.uk/rl-app)
- RL variety selection tool (ahdb.org.uk/vst)
- RL interactive (ahdb.org.uk/rl-interactive)
RL interactive is a new resource. Based on the latest RL data, the interactive tables feature filters to help you identify varieties that meet your needs (based on market, quality, yield, disease resistance and agronomic characteristics).
*Source: John Nix Farm Management Pocketbook 2024.
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The Power of Foliar Feeding
Key to regenerative farming is the ability to cut fertiliser inputs, while not compromising on yield or quality. Foliar feeding nitrogen, in the form of urea treated with potassium humate, is one such method and as will be shown below, this has the potential to completely change how grassland is managed. In addition to improving NUE and farm profitability, there are long term soil health benefits.
Abstract
Soil health is at the heart of sustainable agriculture and farmers across the UK are increasingly looking for innovative ways to reduce input costs while maintaining productivity. Ammonium nitrogen is particularly toxic to soil biology and by using the technique of foliar feeding, nutrients are applied directly to the plant instead of to the soil.
Taking a lead from trials conducted in New Zealand (Using Humic Compounds to Improve Efficiency of Fertiliser Nitrogen, Phillip Schofield, Nicky Watt and Max Schofield, 2015) Welsh grassland consultant Nigel Howells undertook a similar project on four farms in Wales from 2019-2021. The aim was to see if the same results could be replicated under UK farming conditions, thereby reducing the need for conventional prilled nitrogen.
The findings did indeed suggest that foliar feeding can lead to more efficient nutrient (in this case nitrogen) use, with improved dry matter yields and quality. This article delves into the results of the study and what they mean for farmers looking to optimise their fertilising strategies.
Understanding Foliar Feeding
Foliar feeding is not a new concept and has long been used to correct nutrient deficiencies in arable crops. Plants absorb nutrients more rapidly through their leaves than through their roots and foliar feeding can be particularly beneficial in grassland when prevailing conditions have affected nutrient uptake (such as a cold, wet spring). Nitrogen in the form of urea is readily converted to plant protein, making it even more efficient than conventional ammonium nitrate fertilisers.
It is, however, important to note that there must be sufficient leaf growth for foliar feeding to be effective. In the case of grass, there must be at least 4 inches of green grass, therefore sufficient time must elapse before applying after grazing or after cutting – if there is no green, then the plant is not photosynthesising and not growing.
Foliar feeding works particularly well with nitrogen, but please remember that foliar feeding cannot supply all nutrients as crops still take up nutrients via the roots and so soil reserves continue to be depleted. Regular soil testing is still important.
Potassium humate is a long chain molecule which stabilises the urea, making it more effective and reducing scorching. Humates dissolve the waxy coating on the leaves, allowing greater penetration of the nitrogen molecules. Inevitably with a foliar feed, around 20% will land on the soil, which benefits from the soil conditioning and bio-stimulant properties of the humates. Use of humates improves forage quality and palatability and coupled with the reduction in nitrogen use, leads to long term livestock health benefits.
Adopting foliar feeding as part of a broader nutrient management strategy can be relatively straightforward and should be seen as a complementary tool towards achieving greater farm efficiency. Taking a balanced approach will optimise long term farm viability.
One final word: as with any foliar application, the usual caveats around appropriate weather conditions apply.
Methodology
The trials were carried out on 4 dairy farms in mid and south west Wales varying from 100-300 Hectares with different stocking densities. On each farm, one field (approximately 6Ha) was split into three sections of equal size with the following fertiliser regimes implemented.
• Plot 1: Conventional prilled nitrogen application every 21 days
• Plot 2: Foliar feed – a mixture of urea and humic acid – at 21-day intervals during the grazing season
• Plot 3: Control of no nitrogen
Fertilisers were applied to the plots as follows:
Total N application varied from farm to farm and from year to year (Table 1). This was because:
• Differences in soil types, evaluation and production systems between the three farms meant that appropriate levels of N application were different on three farms (see section 2.2).
• The first two years’ results suggested that, while in absolute terms, the yields were higher on the conventional fertiliser plots, the NUE was much higher in the foliar fed plots. The farmers were interested in whether, by increasing the N concentration in the foliar feed mix, absolute yields could increase to be comparable with the conventional plots.
Table 1: Total N application
Key Findings from the Study
The research revealed several important insights for farmers:
- Improved Nutrient Efficiency Crops that received foliar applications showed improved nutrient uptake efficiency compared to those relying solely on soil fertilisers. This means that farmers can potentially reduce their reliance on expensive granular fertilisers while maintaining or even increasing yields.
- At higher rates of N, Foliar Feeds can support comparable yields to conventional application systems.
- At lower rates if N application, the Nitrogen Use Efficiency is much greater (between 2 and three times higher) in Foliar Fed systems.
- Foliar Feed systems appear to give higher yields in adverse conditions, for example cool and/or dry conditions. This likely to be because absorption through the leaves is less affected by adverse soil conditions compare to uptake through the roots.
- In pre-cutting grass analysis the Foliar Feed plot consistently had 2-3% higher sugar levels than conventional.
- The foliar Feed cutting plot had lower soil calcium losses (higher pH) than the conventional plot.
- To get best efficiency foliar feed should be applied at 4 inches/ 2200kgdm/Ha.
- Drought and Stress Resilience Foliar-fed crops exhibited better resistance to environmental stressors, particularly during dry conditions. The ability to deliver nutrients directly to leaves allows for continued plant growth, even when soil moisture is limited.
Figure 1: Dry matter yields 2020 (Low N Foliar Feed)
Figure 2: Dry matter yields 2021 (High N Foliar Feed)
Farmer Perspectives
The farmers involved in the project felt they had benefited from direct involvement in the project. Collecting data on their individual farms gave them a high degree of confidence in the results, and in the relevance of the findings to their commercial farming operations.
The opportunity to feed into the direction of the project was also valued. For example, the decisions to extend the trials to silage plots and to look at higher rates of N application in the third year resulted from feedback from the farmers, after detailed analysis and discussion of the data from the previous years.
The direct experience of the participating farmers, to whom the wider farming community can relate, is an extremely important factor in the effective dissemination of the project findings.
“After being part of the Foliar feed Project for the last 3 years, I have had my eyes opened as to the benefit of this different way to apply fertiliser on my grassland, and as a result I will be Foliar feeding the farm ongoing” – Farmer at Site 3.
Conclusion
The study underscores the value of foliar feeding as a powerful tool along with conventional application in challenging weather issues. By increasing nutrient efficiency, and boosting plant resilience, foliar-applied nutrients can help farmers optimise their input use and improve long-term soil sustainability.
For farmers interested in adopting this technique, small-scale trials can be a good starting point. By experimenting with different formulations and application timings, growers can determine the best foliar feeding strategy for their specific soil and crop conditions.
As agriculture continues to evolve, embracing innovative methods like foliar feeding can play a crucial role in achieving more sustainable and resilient farming systems. By integrating this practice into their nutrient management plans, farmers can not only improve yields but also contribute to healthier soils and a more sustainable future for UK agriculture.
You can read the paper in full here: https://businesswales.gov.wales/farmingconnect/business/european-innovation-partnership-eip-wales/approved-eip-wales-projects/foliar-feed)
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Newer herbicides and multiple modes of action are the key to grassweed control success
Spring cropping provides one of the best opportunities for control of problem grassweeds, but with only a few of the selective herbicides used in the autumn authorised for application in the spring, growers need to plan carefully if they are to achieve the high-level control needed.
Spring weed control requires different tactics because there are fewer opportunities to stack, sequence and time the application of selective herbicides, explains Jodie Littleford, Agrii technical manager for combinable crop trials.
“Leaving seeds to germinate over the winter before spraying off with glyphosate ahead of drilling will do much to reduce weed populations. Our trials and other research over the past decade show quite clearly that cultural measures, which includes the use of glyphosate pre-drilling, can account for up to 95% of control. This is more than even the best selective herbicide can achieve,” says Ms Littleford.
Jodie Littleford (Ms) Agrii technical manager for combinable crop trials Central to the effectiveness of cultural measures is achieving a high weed flush before drilling, as shown in figure 1.
“The bigger the flush, the better. Once the crop is sown, the means of control are far more restricted – and you have to battle the weather to apply them,” says Ms Littleford.
Fig 1: Cultural controls can account for up to 95% reduction in black-grass heads
Reference: Agrii, 2023Agrii grassweed trials highlight the challenge when seeking to control of a range of grassweed species. The best combination of active substances for black-grass control, for instance, may perform equally strongly for brome species but is unlikely to be the best for rye-grass.
This is where is pays to identify your priorities, but there are some simple points that, if followed, will improve the chances of success, believes Ms Littleford.
- Use multiple active substances. Avoiding reliance on any one active substance or mode of action is essential to effective resistance management. Are your weeds ACCase or ALS resistant? Knowing the answer will determine your herbicide choices and potentially save you money. It is worth mapping field areas with a heavy weed burden so populations can be targeted.
- Mix modes of action. Different modes of action target different pathways. Mixing modes of action is essential to managing resistance.
- Stack and sequence active substances. Herbicides have different degradation rates. By stacking and sequencing products, it is possible to extend the period of activity and counter the atmospheric conditions, such as the above average temperatures experienced last autumn, which can enhance degradation rates and result in performance below expectations.
- Use the strongest herbicide products available. It’s a numbers game, so utilise everything available to you, including the best herbicides.
For black-grass control, flufenacet-based strategies such as those built around Liberator/Giddo (diflufenican + flufenacet), have been the basis of residual control for many years. The addition of Bandur (aclonifen) as a pre-emergence mixing partner improved overall control further, but the introduction of Luximo (cinmethylin) delivered a significant uplift in performance. As a co-formulation with picolinafen, Luxiguard Opti (cinmethylin + picolinafen) is a step-on from flufenacet combinations, but it is possible to improve control further by increasing the herbicide load and combining modes of action (see figure 2).
Fig 2: Pre-emergence cinmethylin combinations have improved overall black-grass control compared with flufenacet-based mixtures
Reference: Agrii, 2024, 5 trials. Mean black-grass ear count in untreated plots 560/m2 (range: 277 to 1168). The products or combinations displayed in grey, cannot be applied to spring crops.“Cinmethylin, as in Luximo, is the strongest product we have for black-grass and rye-grass. It is a step-on from the best performing flufenacet combination. In the autumn it should be partnered with either Orient (pendimethalin + picolinafen) or Pontos (flufenacet + picolinafen), and at the right rate, to support control. Ahead of spring barley, however, it can only be mixed with Orient,” says Ms Littleford.
One of the challenges of grassweed control in spring cereals is the limited choice of herbicides. Of the products featured in figure 2, only Liberator/Giddo and Orient can be applied to spring barley and spring wheat. Products containing Luximo cannot be applied to spring wheat.
In high-population situations, however, the burden may be more than selective herbicides can manage. In such cases, cultural measures may provide better control.
“Successful grassweed control is a numbers game. There are more herbicide choices available in the autumn, but there will be situations when the burden is so great that a move to spring crops is likely to be more worthwhile. For this reason, the opportunity afforded by glyphosate ahead of spring drilling should not be overlooked,” Ms Littleford adds.
Nozzle choice – hitting, not missing, the target
Sprayer operators will need to follow best practice guidelines if they hope to see good grassweed control after switching to nozzles featuring drift reduction technology (DRT), trials by Agrii reveal.
“Our work and that of others has repeatedly shown that the optimum water rate for pre-emergence herbicides is 200 litres/ha. At this rate with a flat-fan nozzle we achieved black-grass control of 88%. Change to a Defy 3D nozzle and control improved to 93%,” explains Jodie Littleford.
The difficulty in seeking to maintain high-level control comes with maintaining compliance with drift control regulations.
“Sadly, getting the best from a product and controlling drift tend to be mutually exclusive choices, but through other measures it is possible to bring performance back to levels seen with older nozzles, such as the flat-fan,” says Ms Littleford.
The advantage of DRT is that it enables a smaller buffer zone, typically 6, 12 or 18 metres depending on the product label, and this is considered preferable to the 30 metres from the top of the bank where no DRT is used.
DRT compliance means using nozzles with a minimum three-star rating, such as the BubbleJet range from Billericay Farm Services and the Syngenta Amistar (Guardian Air) nozzle. Unfortunately, most three-star nozzles are not rated for use at field pressures, typically 3-bar, which means growers would cease to be regulatory compliant.
To overcome this, Agrii has been looking at four-star nozzles, i.e. 90% drift reduction, because even at pressures where they are no longer four-star rated, they still hold three [stars].
But this is far more than a compliance issue. Agrii trials at Stow Longa found that control fell by nearly 10% after switching from a Defy 3D to a three-star DRT nozzle and by nearly 50% when three-star nozzles were used at 100 l/ha and at pressures beyond their designated rating – see figure 1.
Fig. 1: The further you get from perfect conditions, the greater the contribution of adjuvant Backrow
Reference: Agrii, 2022-23.“The effect of DRT nozzles is to have fewer droplets, at which point surface distribution and retention become important to success. We see that Backrow, a mineral oil adjuvant, helps to normalise droplets to create a consistent distribution across the spectrum. When conditions deteriorate, this is a highly effective and easy way to support performance,” says Ms Littleford.
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Farmer Focus – Zoe Fletcher
Hello! I am Zoe, the Assistant Farm Manager on a large arable and sheep farm on the Lincs/Leics border.
As we see the end of the drilling season Spring ‘25 has been kind to us, leaving me feeling slightly unsettled with a thought of “what will Mother Nature do next?!”. We have made good progress so far; sugar beet is emerging, the peas are chitting (no frosts, please!), the oats are popping up in rows and land is cultivated ready for maize drilling. Our winter crops are also doing well, albeit a bit behind, with this year’s fungicide programme ready to roll and our OSR already in flower (yes, we are still sticking with OSR!).
Our spring drilling has been completed with the John Deere 8RX and Horsch Avatar, focusing on minimising compaction with machinery weight distribution and reduced cultivation to conserve soil moisture. Where cultivations were required, such as after cover crops or the grazed fodder beet, the 8RX and 8R have been pulling a Vaderstad TopDown, but we did demo a Vaderstad Carrier with CrossCutter Discs which did a good job, and quickly.
Whilst we have had good weather to get on with spring operations, with the forecast looking dry over the next couple of weeks, dare I whisper, “we could do with some r***”. Not only will it help to get drilled crops growing, but it will aid in washing down the granular N and provide some further cultivation.
We do a mix of liquid and granular N, both for storage purposes as we have liquid tanks and grain is still sitting in stores, but also for availability of N to the crop, A) to get it going and B) to keep it going. We have been increasing our use of muck and digestate because of their nutrient content, cost and availability, as well as to improve our carbon footprint with the reduced need for inorganic N. We’ve started exploring carbon opportunities so we will have to see how well this performs as a future source of income.
We try to run as broad a rotation as possible on the farm, accepting that whilst some crops may not provide the most attractive margins, they do still have a role to play. We have several farmyards which provide space for storage for our variety of crops and our grain drying facility allows for flexibility during harvest. Our rotation includes winter cereals, winter beans and OSR, along with spring cereals, sugar beet and maize. We also integrate options such as GS4 and AB15/NUM3 under stewardship into the rotation.
Sheep were introduced to the farming operation a couple of years ago to improve the arable enterprise through grazing and the return of organic matter, plus they offer an opportunity for a diversified income – they’re a useful tool in the business but they do take a couple of years to work out financially. We are running approximately 1,900 sheep on the farm, depending on the time of year. We rear outdoors all year which, especially at lambing, reduces costs to the business. Because of this, we had to choose a maternal breed with fast growing lambs, such as the Aberfield. We are due to start lambing mid-April although, as always, it’ll be the ewes that decide this!
Alongside our cash crops, we are busy managing our range of Countryside Stewardship (CS) and Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI) crops and plots. It is great to see that these areas are already filling with plants so we know they will be buzzing with biodiversity come flowering, as well as help make the farm look beautiful.
We are in the process of completing CS Capital Grant projects, such as fencing and water infrastructure, to support our sheep enterprise. As for our other Capital Grant application submitted before the system was closed in late 2024, we are still waiting to hear confirmation of this. Hopefully, it’ll come through in time for completion by Harvest ’25…but we will see.
We are fortunate to have two years left on our CS agreement and we are only in year two of our SFI23 agreement. We were quite comprehensive in the areas we designated for stewardship, so there is little more we would want to remove going forward without impacting productive arable land. We were preparing to apply for the SFI24 scheme, which closed unexpectedly in the middle of March. Whilst disappointing that we missed this opportunity, we are comfortable knowing that the actions we would have applied for would have provided us with more of a bonus income for things we already do, rather than being income that the business would have heavily relied on. Unfortunately, this is not the case for many farming businesses who maybe now felt comfortable to give SFI a go or have already incurred costs in planning their applications. Hopefully though, their planning would not have been wasted if/when a revised scheme comes back to the table.
Harvest 2024 yields results weren’t anything to shout about, as expected but with our drying facility, we were able to get going a bit earlier and harvest crops when conditions weren’t necessarily ideal. We were lucky to have secured a forward price in 2023 for our 2024 wheat crop which kept our average £/t looking good for the year. Since then, we’ve been selling grain gradually to see where prices were headed and, it appears, only down. With prices not looking to improve too much, we have decided to sell all but 10% of our 2024 main crops in the lead-up to Harvest ’25. On the bright side though, this has allowed us to get most of the sheds cleaned out, which means less of a job come early summer!
Looking ahead to Harvest ’25, we have been tentative with sales but not strayed far from our usual selling approach. With prices currently £30-40/t below the cost of production, it’s unlikely we will be doing much more selling for the moment but, as the last couples of years have taught us, anything can happen.
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Plan for Potassium
Written by George Hepburn, Crop Nutrition Consultant with AIVA.
The time has come to think about crop nutrition and the questions that I hear year on year are: should I be doing tissue tests? Or sap analysis? Which crops? At what stage? How many fields? Is it even worth it?
If you are looking to reduce your chemical input, then there is much more emphasis on building the crops own natural defences. A healthy plant, photosynthesising well, will be much better at fighting off pests and diseases versus a plant high in nitrate with imbalanced nutrition. Which would you say is the more likely to succumb to pressure?
Each nutrient plays their own role and has their own story. Previously in the Direct Driller, I have written about Phosphorus. We are now entering a period where Potassium is a key nutrient.
All soils contain good amounts of Potassium (K+), generally the more clay in your soil the more Potassium you have. Some types of clay are very rich and can have up to 20000 kg/ha of Potassium. Medium soils can have 10000 -15000 kg/ha (in the top 6”- 15cm). The same old issue crops up though. The amount in the soil is not the problem, it’s accessing the soil reserve especially at fast growing times like stem extension and grain fill.
Using a past analysis as an example of a wheat crop during its growing period, we can see what the crop has taken up by mid-June. Nitrogen is at 400 kg/ha, which is reasonable, however Potassium is clocks in at 300 kg/ha, which is low. This is important because a crop of wheat needs as much Potassium as Nitrogen in the next 15 weeks (up until mid-June), somewhere around the 400 kg /ha mark. Depending on your soil type, there could be ample stocks of stored Potassium, but only if you can access it. Rooting and root structure is key in this scenario (the benefits of phosphorus availability). The better the root system of your crop, the more soil they will explore, and the more potential Potassium it will find. Potassium (K+) is held on to the negatively charged clay colloids in the soil and is easily exchanged with the plant for H+ (which the plant expels) due to Potassium’s relatively weak charge.
https://digfir-published.macmillanusa.com/life11e/life11e_ch35_14.html
Biology plays a key role here too. Graeme Sait says, ‘For every mineral there is a microbe’, and we know that there are species of Potassium solubilising bacteria that feed from the exudates pumped out by the plant roots. They create weak acids that also contributes to making Potassium and other nutrients available for the plant to take up.
You might apply a soil applied Potassium fertiliser. An application of 100 kg/ha of MOP provides 60 kg/ha of Potassium, which delivers 6g per metre squared. This is not much when we potentially already have over 1000g in the soil naturally. This can however make a big difference, so it shows how a modest amount can make a real impact.
The question is then, are we doing a good job as an industry with our Potassium fertiliser strategies? NRM, one of the top UK laboratories, released this statement recently:
The trends for Potassium and Magnesium were contrary to phosphorus and tended to be below the target levels. This could imply that nutrient supplies are not optimal, or factors such as weather or soil conditions and/or imbalance of nutrients within the soil might have influenced the results and affected the concentrations.
At GS30-31, nearly three-quarters of the samples analysed were found to be deficient in Potassium and only 30% of samples were within the target range. This trend continued at GS32-37 for both Potassium and Magnesium, where more samples continued to contain below-target concentrations.
Following that statement, it seems that we aren’t doing as well as we had hoped with these Potassium fertiliser strategies! This rings true to me, in my 20 years in the advisory side of the industry, many of the tissue and SAP analysis that I have interpreted over the years have commonly shown deficiencies in Potassium, Magnesium, Calcium and Boron.
This is when we turn our focus on to foliar nutrition. Utilising analysis that provides a snapshot of where the crop is at, enabling us to then target key timings, whilst using the right partner products. Informed decisions!
My old mentor, Mr Plumb, always said that a small amount of Potassium applied as a foliar acted as a catalyst to take up more Potassium from the soil. I have applied this over the years, especially after hearing it reinforced at the Acres Conference in the USA. To echo these teachings, here’s some more data that I’ve dug up:
This paper, published in 2022, studied the use of foliar Potassium in winter wheat and maize and drew some interesting conclusions:
- Foliar-applied Potassium increases both the uptake of soil K and overall plant growth in wheat and maize.
- This application significantly improves plant growth traits, including root biomass, root-to-shoot ratios, and water content, by 13-56%.
- Photosynthetic activity and chlorophyll content in plants also improved, with increases of 10-14%.
- The study found that foliar-applied K enhanced root K uptake by 23% in wheat and 55% in maize.
- After foliar K application, the soil had 10% less biologically available K, suggesting that the plants absorbed more from the soil.
Taking this into account, foliar Potassium does not only work in providing more uptake into the plant, it is also actively encouraging the biology to release more from the soil. You are priming the plant to pump out the exudates, bettering the soils microbiome, stimulating the right fraction of biology. Root mass, photosynthetic ability and chlorophyll levels also increase, all very useful traits!
When doing tissue tests, remember that plants can still be low in applied nutrients between tests because of an increase in biomass stimulated with foliar applications. When testing, it’s important to sample both old and new leaves. This is because when the plants extend, this can show the movement of the nutrients up and through the plant.
At AIVA, we like to use foliar Potassium because of all the benefits that it brings. At these current key stages of the growing season, a modest amount of a quality foliar product can deliver big benefits to the crop. We use tissue and SAP analysis (this can be organised for you, should you wish) to reinforce the decisions made to use such solutions. As always, at AIVA we follow a systems approach practice and would look to partner this foliar application with a source of carbon, a quality fulvic acid, and other required nutrition to facilitate a balanced application.
AIVA Potassium is 14% Potassium, supported with an amide complex. Apply at 5-10 l/ha with your T1 and T2 sprays.
https://aivafertiliser.co.uk/product/potassium
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Drilling for Success: The Versatility of AMAZONE’s Tine Drills
In the current farming climate, growers require drills with maximum flexibility to handle multiple crop types and establishment methods. AMAZONE has developed a range of tine drills to meet these challenges. Since the late 1970s, the company has utilised the TineTeC coulter across various models, more recently including the Cayena, Condor, and Primera DMC. The slim chisel opener provides excellent penetration for precise depth control, even at shallow sowing depths, while minimising soil disturbance to reduce moisture loss and limit weed germination.
For farmers like William Forsyth, who works with heavy clay soils
across his 2,200 ha Warwickshire farm, this adaptability was essential. His previous disc coulter drills lacked the necessary pressure to maintain consistent seed depth, leading him to invest in three Condor 12001-C drills.
Cayena TineTec coulter 
Condor ConTeC pro coulter After first trialling a Condor in autumn 2023, William and his father Anthony were immediately impressed with the drill’s versatility. Despite the wet and steep conditions on the demo day, they successfully used it for direct drilling, as well as into tilled and ploughed ground.
“The seed was at a completely even depth across the entire machine, something we were not used to at all with our previous drill,” stated William. “Setting the seeding depth is also surprisingly easy, with a tool on each end of the drill to adjust the depth of individual coulters, making it simple to get the right seed depth behind the tractor wheels.”
Condor 12001-C 
Cayena 6001-C The chisel action of the tine forms a clean seed slot, placing the seed without seed/straw contact. This improves germination and eliminates the risk of residue breakdown affecting crop establishment. The long coulter spacing allows row spacing to be as narrow as 16.6 cm while ensuring that surface residues pass through the drill without blockages. The Cayena model further improves residue management with a row of vertical front cutting discs that slice through trash ahead of the coulters.
William also noted the reduced pulling power of the new Condor drills, allowing the tractors to run at lower revs, reducing fuel consumption. Additionally, the fast folding and unfolding process makes field-to-field transitions effortless—a key factor when working with a 12-metre drill on fields averaging just 9 hectares.
The MultiBin System: Precision and Efficiency
With these models of tine drills having the ability to establish a cover crop straight into stubble – or into a stale seedbed, sow a cash crop following last year’s cash crop or to sow a cash crop into a cover crop, the AMAZONE tine drills are equipped with the MultiBin system with a divided hopper along with additional seeder boxes. Using the divided main tank, available with either two or three chambers, the drill can be used to sow a multitude of seed varieties as well as undersowing crops, companion crop planting, or mix of seed and fertiliser to target phosphate in the seeding zone. Additionally, the MultiBin system can be used for a mix of seed and slug pellets, or seed and a micro-granular herbicide. Each hopper within the MultiBin system is controlled via ISOBUS individually and can run off three or four variable rate application maps for site-specific, part area application where seed populations are matched with soil type and topography to maintain an even crop density.
As farms incorporate more diverse crop rotations, changing seed types or mixes has become more frequent, meaning seed calibration has become a much more regular task. TwinTerminal involves a secondary terminal mounted on the drill near the metering units, allowing for easy calibration and pre-metering for all seed hoppers and metering units without having to jump in and out of the cab. Simply hold the calibration button and then enter the weight of the metered seed Simply hold the calibration button and enter the weight of the metered seed. William’s team described how it saved them significant time and reduced the need to jump in and out of the cab.
Optimised Reconsolidation for Strong Establishment
Beyond precision seeding, AMAZONE’s tine drills ensure robust crop establishment through their unique reconsolidation system. Strip-wise reconsolidation, where only the seed row is firmed while the area between rows remains loose, is key to improved water infiltration and reduced weed germination.
With conventional drills, capped soil surfaces and poor drainage often hinder establishment. However, the Condor’s depth and consolidation rollers ensure uniform firmness around the seed, maintaining moisture availability even in dry conditions, whilst leaving the areas between the coulters undisturbed. Similarly, the Cayena drill uses a Matrix profile tyre, which applies pressure precisely in line with the seed rows, mirroring the spacing of the tine coulters.
Strip-wise reconsolidation with the Matrix tyre profile. Cost-Effective and User-Friendly Design
The ability to direct drill, work in a min-till system, or function as a conventional
seeder means farmers like William get maximum flexibility from their drill investment. Setup is straightforward, and with fewer moving parts, wearing costs are kept low—something every farm operation can appreciate.
Available in working widths from 6 m to 15 m, AMAZONE’s tine drills offer efficiency without compromising precision. With lower fuel requirements, adaptable seeding options, and user-friendly operation, they are an ideal investment for modern arable farming, delivering reliable performance across a variety of soil and establishment conditions.
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Foliars mean less nitrogen with increased yield and protein
Rosalind Platt is managing director of crop nutrition specialists BFS Fertiliser Services Limited.
Foliar nitrogen treatments later in the season reduce the total amount of nitrogen needed while maintaining or lifting yield, and increasing protein.
The pressure on farmers today seems more relentless than ever. Key priorities are to maximise soil health and nitrogen use efficiency while maintaining yields, as well as increasing protein levels in milling wheat. As a UK leader in crop nutrition for more than 75 years, BFS has developed fertiliser programmes tailored to meet these challenges.
One solution is our foliar nitrogen product, PolyNPlus Foliars; another – our protein enhancers, Profol and ProfiPlus – gives farmers flexible options to increase protein in milling wheat.
Over many years, independent research on PolyNPlus by one of Britain’s oldest agricultural research centres, NIAB, and international farm managers and agronomists, Velcourt, has verified the excellent results achieved by farmers.
Nitrogen, vital to maximise yields in crop production, is traditionally soil-applied as ammonium nitrate, urea or liquid UAN. Farmers would normally make two or three applications of soil-applied fertiliser in the spring. But later in the season the nitrogen use efficiency of these types of fertiliser, whether solid or liquid, can decline to 25 to 30%, especially when the conditions are dry – see charts.
When the leaf canopy is sufficient, PolyNPlus Foliars can replace a proportion of the soil-applied nitrogen for a wide range of crops including cereals, oilseed rape, sugar beet, potatoes and maize. Application timings combine well with fungicide.
Application rates vary by crop. As a guide, and depending on soil and weather factors, 25 litres of PolyNPlus – supplying just 8kg of nitrogen – can replace 40 to 50kg of any type of soil-applied nitrogen. This can cut the carbon footprint of the third application by 77 per cent – PolyNPlus’s sticky nature prevents nitrate loss, avoiding groundwater contamination, and the loss of ammonia is minimal.
Therefore farmers can apply less nitrogen while maintaining or increasing yields.
Paul Jannaway, a Wiltshire-based contractor working with several large landowners, said: ‘The yields and quality of the products we harvested were excellent. I applied PolyNPlus in all conditions, even when it was very hot, and had absolutely no scorch. I believe we will see a lot more of this product – PolyNPlus is the future.’ As well as using PolyNPlus successfully on wheat and rape, he has used it on oats just before the panicles or oat heads emerged, and recorded a bumper crop.
PolyNPlus is the only foliar nitrogen which has been extensively and independently trialled.
Protein enhancement
To increase protein later in the season for milling wheat showing potential, applying additional nitrogen at growth stages 69 to 75 is highly effective. BFS’s urea-based solutions boost protein and improve the prospect of premium prices.
BFS Profol (18N) is a urea solution and, as a foliar application, has a rapid uptake even in dry weather. It is used at 200 litres per hectare to provide 40kgs of nitrogen per hectare.
If a smaller quantity or reduced application rates are preferred, we supply ProfiPlus, for which the timing of application is more flexible, in 10 hectare packs. It is a hybrid product which includes a small amount of PolyNPlus, sulphur, magnesium and seaweed extract. These ensure rapid uptake and slower release of nitrogen, meaning ProfiPlus can be applied earlier than Profol, and making it more efficient than other solutions.
A foliar future
Foliar nitrogen is set to play an essential role in the future of farming. It is a cost-effective way of improving nitrogen use efficiency, maintaining or increasing yield and protein, reducing pollution and cutting a farm’s carbon footprint.
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Farmer Focus – Ben Taylor-Davies
Embracing Diversity and Branding for Farm Resilience
Up horn, down corn – never has this statement been so true and never have the principles of regen ag been so ultimately important for profitability and the ironing out of the horrific bumps in the road ahead. 2024 saw us have almost double our annual rainfall average (measured since 1930) of 1130mm, that combined with the lack of light intensity and depressed combinable crop prices are a recipe for disaster when compared to just 2 years ago when everything looked so different for high input, high yield farming.
On 18th November 2020 we purchased 10 Hereford cross heifer calves and bucket reared them for the long term, these were going to be our suckler herd of the future, the following year we added 20 Angus heifer calves for the same purpose. I was once told that you bought chickens to lay and sell eggs every day, pigs every 4 months, sheep every 6 months and cows every 24 months. Spreading risk and income streams was the mission we were on after having all of the previous on the farm already. In hindsight we should have begun with the cattle and finished with the chickens to get ahead of the game, but we find out generally after the event.
Cows and calving, purchasing a bull etc has gone well and have realised the size of the herd explodes in size when you’re into the 3rd year of cows calving, we seem to have over stretched the size of barns and the amount of herbal leys we have on the rotation and therefore about to sell 41 head, just the simple task of a TB test to clear first! The beef market is at all-time highs and as the time comes nearer, the nerves that the market will ‘hold’ become ever more real! If all goes according to plan, the cattle and lambs this year will bail out what looks like the doom of the arable side of the business, much like the vineyard did in 2022 when everything pretty much the crops died of drought stress.
Diversity is still the main driving force of the farm and I find it odd that when you talk to so many about diversity the response is we shouldn’t need to, blaming supermarkets and the like. I see things slightly differently and not sure blame needs to be apportioned, but equally the easiest action to take. The whole world works around profit, the easiest way to produce profit is to become desirable in what you have to sell, which often leads to the formation of a ‘brand’ in essence a brand is profit, it differentiates you from competitors and makes it almost impossible to make accurate comparisons between goods and services. As farmers of course, everything ‘bought’ onto farm is a ‘brand’ ag chem companies get a good kicking, but rarely if ever do I hear the same rhetoric when discussing say banks, and their profits are enormous, but have you ever tried to compare their services? interest rates are one thing, but ‘hidden’ charges are just about everywhere and at different values.
Why is this important? Well, we essentially buy in brands, to generally produce a commodity (of which has zero branding) and total price takers, only for the first thing to happen to the commodity we sell to be turned into a brand as soon as humanly possible! A chicken, plucked, wrapped and put on a shelf is easily comparable and therefore profitability is much lower to say taking that chicken, dicing it up, shaping into a dinosaur and covering it with breadcrumbs, the value of the chicken has trebled in this process.
We have recently worked out that, not only do we need to take far more control of the ‘brands’ entering the farm but need to try and brand things leaving the farm. Wildfarmed wheat is a great start, but so much more can be done and the development of our ‘Added value alley’ where are producing ancient grain pasta, biltong, air dried meats and fruit biltong is showing the profit is in branding and not in chasing yield. I’m not sure any of this is that much different to what my great grandfather was doing, lots of diversity of income streams, selling local, by reputation of what he produced (branding). It was this generation that often tenants made enough from their produce to purchase their own farm, perhaps we need to look backwards in order to move forwards and realise that diversity is something we should all embrace whenever we seek profit and take ownership of your brand, it could and should build confidence and ultimately see a farms long term sustainability.
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Agronomist in Focus – Cameron Ferguson
Responding to the challenges of climate change and extreme weather with versatile varieties
Although it’s fair to say that growing cereal crops in the western half of Scotland has always been a challenge with unpredictable weather and a shorter growing season, it’s now apparent that “tough” is becoming “very tough” following two out of the last three autumns’ where its been virtually impossible for many farmers to establish a winter wheat crop.
Born and bred in Ayrshire, I’ve worked for the last 5 and a half years for Agri-Source, a division of L S Smellie and Sons limited (pronounced “Smiley” by the way) so I’ve seen the landscape of farming in western Scotland change significantly over the last 40 years, and, in many ways, not for the better.
Farmers in my patch covering Ayrshire, Renfrewshire and some of the outer lying Islands within the county of Argyll, have always been incredibly resilient. But waiting for a drilling window that doesn’t come after you’ve pre-committed to major input purchases such as fertiliser and seed would test anyone’s patience.
As a boy, some of my happiest memories are of tobogganing in deep snow or ice skating on the local river Ayr. There were always four distinct seasons back then, and farmers knew and trusted the calendar to plan ahead of each new season. As of 2025, I can’t tell you the last time we had sufficient snowfall to justify getting a sledge out of the shed or the last time any local rivers where frozen over enough to skate on!
What I do know is that autumn, winter and often early spring have now become one mild, extremely wet, six month period where key establishment decisions are either not being made or, at best, being made during a rare good weather window making it increasingly difficult for agronomists and distribution, particularly the bigger agrochemical distributors, to react quickly enough. Fifteen years ago, all my customers ordered spring seed before Christmas. Now they’ll often leave purchasing decisions till as late as mid-March. Again, all down to the unpredictability of climate change.
For balance, can I also mention that, whilst I firmly believe we are living through a period of climate change, I am more sceptical about the source of temperature rises. Whilst there’s an argument for man-made contributions to rising global temperatures, we have to remember that the earth has been much hotter than it is now and that during that warmer period, before the last ice age, human beings weren’t industrialised or polluting the world with greenhouse gases. What is happening right now is the latest chapter in a world warming cycle that we’ve been living through for 10,000 years since the end of the last ice age. Scientists will argue about the speed of recent change, but, in my opinion, it’s difficult to form a definitive opinion in the face of conflicting science.
So, what’s to be done to help growers in my region, and many others in the UK, facing similar climatic challenges?
As an agronomist, the answer for me has to be science based. Specifically in plant breeding technology, focusing on improving genetic traits such as rapid early growth, earlier maturity and perhaps, most importantly, drilling flexibility rather than always prioritising yield and disease resistance.
When I look at the current AHDB lists, one variety – Blackstone, a Group 4 soft wheat, from breeder Elsoms Seeds stands out from the pack. I first saw the variety in National List year 2 trials in 2023. At first glance, it was taller than most and, in comparison to other plots, it looked relatively clean showing fewer signs of either rust or septoria – a good early positive.
However, when I saw the 6 month recommended drilling window for Blackstone, September 1st to the end of February, and then explored the varieties’ vernalisation data in more detail showing evidence of high to full levels of vernalisation for plots drilled in late March, I began to form an idea that this variety could be an answer for many growers caught in a difficult scenario of deciding if they should risk drilling a winter wheat in spring.
With another long, wet autumn and winter on the horizon for 2023/ 2024 I didn’t have to wait long to test my theory and I remember sitting down with farmer Jamie Kyle, a successful mixed farmer from the Robstone Farming Company, near Stranraer to talk through his spring rotation and the inherent risk involved in growing a winter wheat as a spring wheat.
Whilst I’ve no doubt many agronomists would rightly question my decision given the AHDB official advice and the breeder’s own recommendations, I would like to add that spring seed was very scare in spring 2024, we had the Blackstone seed on farm by late April, it was paid for, plus we’d assessed the vernalisation data supporting the case for Blackstone up to a potential late March drilling slot. The only question remaining in my mind was could Blackstone perform as well, if not better, than bonified spring wheats such as Talisker if drilled in April?
Drilling 10ha of Blackstone at a high seed rate of 400 seeds per m2 on April 28th following a late harvested crop of potatoes the crop got away well, racing through its early growth stages and competing well against the main weed burden of annual meadow grass. On nutrition, 2 main splits of Nitrogen were applied totalling 160kg/ha, and, on fungicides, we went with just a 2 spray program. Spring is a relatively short season in west Scotland, so any septoria present was coming into a growing crop, not waiting to explode since the winter so I believed a 2 spray strategy was justifiable.
Applying the T1 spray on June 12th, we went with 1l/ha of bixafen + prothioconazole + spiroxamine alongside 1l/ha of folpet. This was applied one week after Blackstone had received its second split of Nitrogen and, I have to say, it had tillered well and was looking exceptionally lush. To give it an extra boost we applied 3l/ha of Seamac Gold foliar feed, and, on July 16th, we applied the main T2 ear-spray using the same T1 chemistry but adjusting the dose rates to 1.2l/ha on the bixafen + prothioconazole.
Blackstone stood very well showing no signs of lodging but, despite its height and although it looked quite forward, I felt there was no requirement for a plant growth regulator.
Harvesting on October 3rd, Blackstone combined well achieving a final overall yield of 7.4t/ha at 15% moisture, as good a yield as any spring wheat I’ve grown and a remarkable performance for a winter wheat sown almost 2 months outside its officially recommended drilling window. Jamie Kyle was delighted and will be increasing his area of Blackstone to 16ha for crop25 with a firm eye on the distilling market again with Grant’s distillery on his doorstep.
There’s definitely a need for more varieties with Blackstone’s drilling flexibility and well done to breeder Elsoms Seeds for stepping up with their Responsive Rotations initiative to try to address some of the ever-growing pressures faced in modern day farming. Blackstone is certainly a step in the right direction.
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Unlocking the power of genomics: What it means for farmers
Biostimulants are becoming a staple in agriculture, enabling growers to boost crop health, resilience, and yields in a cost-effective way. Until now, farmers and agronomists have assessed the efficacy of these products through phenotypic observations – measuring visible changes such as larger root systems, greener leaves, or improved overall plant vigour. While this approach has served the industry well, genomics is now enabling a deeper, more precise understanding of how and why these changes occur.
What is plant genomics?
Plant genomics is the field that explores the complete genetic blueprint of plants, including their DNA structure, function, evolution, and interactions, with the aim of gaining insights into plant biology and enhancing crop performance.
The benefits of biostimulants are generally evaluated based on physical changes observed in the field. For example, data from the University of Nottingham has shown how certain biostimulants lead to enhanced root growth and greener leaves. However, this only tells part of the story. With genomics, it’s possible to go beyond surface-level observations and identify the genotypic responses driving these visible improvements.
“Genomics is not about altering the plant’s DNA, it’s about understanding genetic pathways and behaviour, i.e. ‘reading the book without altering the words,’” explains John Haywood, at Unium Bioscience. “It’s our aim to understand the link between plant biology, genetics, nutrition, and biostimulants, to create solutions for growers, allowing us to build a deep understanding of the mode of action of our products,” he says.
John Haywood explains that this targeted approach enables the creation of more reliable and lower-cost solutions for farmers. He highlights that 60-70% of crop production is lost to abiotic stress (environmental stress) compared to just 20% lost to biotic stress (pests, diseases, and weeds). “However, only around 40% of farmers are using biostimulants and biologicals to mitigate biotic stress. With genomics, farmers have the power to use reliable science to create future solutions, addressing both biotic and abiotic stress more effectively.”
Understanding plant stress at a genetic level
Genomics provide valuable insights into how crops respond to abiotic and biotic stresses. Whether plants are facing drought, heat, cold, or disease pressure, genomic analysis reveals which genes are being upregulated or downregulated -essentially showing how the plant is reacting on a molecular level.
Layne Ellen Harris PhD, owner and research consultant at Foresight Agronomics, specialises in plant gene expression in response to biological agricultural products., and emphasises that gene expression is the key to understanding what is happening beneath the surface of the plant. In the past, the industry has observed that “biostimulant plus application equals expected results,” but the reason why it happens remained a mystery. Genomics answers this by revealing the central dogma of molecular biology – the process of information transfer in cells from DNA to RNA to protein. By identifying which genes are being expressed in response to stress or biostimulant application, scientists can see how plants adjust their biological pathways.
“For example, drought stress triggers biochemical and genetic pathways within the plant to develop coping strategies such as being more efficient with the way it uses water. If we can use products that trick the plant to elicit the same responses, making it think it’s stressed, but making it be more resistant to stress down the road, that’s going to have huge benefits to farmers,” she says.
Benefits to farmers
The greatest advantage of using genomics in biostimulant development is the increased likelihood of seeing a strong return on investment (ROI). With a clearer understanding of how products work at the genetic level, farmers can be more confident that applications will deliver consistent and measurable results.
Tim Eyrich, head of agronomy and innovation at HELM Agro, has over 41 years of expertise in agronomy and horticulture and points out that studying genomics at the field level reveals the interconnectedness of biostimulants and crop nutrition. “Biostimulants rely on optimal nutrition to be effective. By understanding this relationship, farmers can ensure that nutrient dependencies are addressed before applying biostimulants. This enhances both product performance and ROI.”
He also highlights the Importance of timing, explaining that in trials with the biostimulant, Scyon, applying it as early as possible (at the three-leaf stage in wheat) allowed plants to develop better coping strategies for abiotic stress, resulting in improved phenotypic characteristics.
Additionally, genomics helps biologicals specialists like Unium Bioscience accelerate the development and positioning of new products, bringing effective solutions to market faster and at a lower cost – savings that can ultimately be passed on to farmers.
The future
The integration of genomics into farming practices is more than just a scientific advancement – it’s a practical tool for boosting productivity, improving crop resilience, and maximising the efficacy of biostimulant applications.
By harnessing the power of genomics, farmers can make more informed decisions, optimise product usage, and ultimately achieve better yields and profitability. As John Haywood puts it, “this targeted approach reduces risk and enables more strategic farming decisions. With ongoing research into gene pathways, nutrient dependencies, and optimal application timing, genomics is shaping the future of sustainable, profitable agriculture.”
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UK National Action Plan Overlooks Biologicals – WBF Urges Regulatory Reform
The UK Government’s revised National Action Plan (NAP) for the Sustainable Use of Pesticides (2025) was published to reduce pesticide risk and promote more sustainable crop protection practices. However, for the World BioProtection Forum (WBF)—the voice of the biologicals industry—this plan represents a critical missed opportunity. While the NAP recognises Integrated Pest Management (IPM) as a key element of the UK’s sustainable agriculture vision, it fails to address the fundamental enabler of IPM’s success: the availability and adoption of biological crop protection products.
Without Biologicals, IPM Cannot Succeed.
Biological solutions, including biopesticides, microbial products, and natural repellents, are cornerstones of modern Integrated Pest Management (IPM) strategies. However, outdated, slow, costly regulatory systems hinder their integration into UK agriculture.
The NAP promotes IPM but does not provide a pathway to ensure farmers can access the tools necessary for its implementation. This oversight makes the plan aspirational rather than actionable. WBF warns that IPM cannot function effectively without a strong pipeline of registered biologicals to replace withdrawn chemical pesticides.
Biologicals Still Trapped in a Chemical Framework
Despite widespread scientific agreement that biopesticides are safer, break down more quickly, and pose significantly less risk to human health and the environment, they are still evaluated under a regulatory system designed for synthetic chemicals.
The UK continues to operate under EU Regulation 1107/2009, a framework that subjects all pesticide products—regardless of their risk profile—to the same level of scrutiny. Consequently, biologicals may take 4 to 5 years to register in the UK. In the EU, this process can extend even longer—6 to 7 years—without prioritising low-risk solutions.
In stark contrast, Brazil and other Latin American countries have embraced progressive regulatory models that permit the assessment and approval of biologicals in as little as 12 months. These frameworks are based on risk proportionality, facilitating swift adoption without sacrificing safety or efficacy.
DEFRA Must Act Now
The WBF has engaged with DEFRA and the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) for several years to highlight this area’s lack of regulatory innovation. In March 2024, the Forum hosted a Westminster conference in 2023 with policymakers, researchers, and industry leaders to present clear evidence and offer practical solutions. The message was consistent and unified:
“Biologicals must be prioritised, and the UK should establish a dedicated, fast-track registration pathway that acknowledges their low-risk status and crucial role in sustainable farming.”
The WBF has also published a White Paper outlining how the UK can reform its regulatory approach post-Brexit. Unfortunately, the NAP fails to reflect any of these proposals, nor does it reference the need for timelines, provisional authorisations, or support for innovation in the biological space.
Farmers Face a Dangerous Gap
Chemical pesticides are being phased out due to environmental and health concerns, but there is no rapid system to fill the gap with biological alternatives. This widening void makes farmers vulnerable—unable to access new solutions yet restricted from using conventional ones.
WBF Chair and Founder Dr. Minshad Ansari warns:
“We are heading toward a future where UK farmers will be left without effective tools to manage pests and diseases. If the government continues to delay biopesticide reform, it will threaten food security, environmental targets, and international business.”
The Call for a Five-Point Reform Plan
To unlock the potential of biological crop protection, the World BioProtection Forum is urging the UK Government to implement the following reforms without delay:
1. A Dedicated Biologicals Strategy
Introduce a national policy and funding framework that prioritises developing, commercialising, and adopting biological crop protection products.
2. A Fast-Track Registration Pathway
Develop a risk-based, proportionate regulatory process for biopesticides, aiming for a timeline of 12–18 months, modelled on international best practices.
3. Post-Brexit Regulatory Independence
Depart from EU Regulation 1107/2009 and create a UK-specific framework designed for the unique characteristics of biological products, utilising science-based risk assessment.
4. Support for SMEs and Innovation
To accelerate innovation, offer technical and financial support to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), including grants and reductions in registration fees.
5. Demonstration and Adoption Programmes
Initiate government-supported on-farm trials, public procurement programs, and demonstration projects to assess the effectiveness of biologicals and promote farmer adoption.
The Time for Consultation Is Over
The biological sector does not seek shortcuts or diminished safety standards. It demands fairness, clarity, and urgency—a system that aligns regulation with risk and innovation with opportunity.
The UK has the chance to become a global leader in sustainable crop protection and post-Brexit regulatory reform. But this cannot happen if we continue to delay the registration of solutions already proven safe, effective, and aligned with our climate and biodiversity goals.
WBF Remains Committed
The World BioProtection Forum will continue to advocate for a more progressive and science-aligned regulatory framework. We remain committed to working with DEFRA, HSE, and UK policymakers to develop a modern system that empowers innovation, protects public health, and ensures farmers can deliver secure and sustainable food production.
Until then, the message is clear:
Without biologicals, the goals of the NAP—and the future of IPM—cannot be achieved.
For media inquiries, quotes, or interviews with Dr. Minshad Ansari, contact:
📧 [email protected]
🌐 www.worldbioprotectionforum.com
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Farmer Focus – Andy Cato
Mar 2025
On an April day 90 years ago, Hugh Bennett was testifying to the US congress, trying to instil a sense of urgency about the precarious state of American soils. As he spoke, soil blew in from the great plains 1500 miles away, blocking out the sun and giving the day the name by which it would later be known: Black Sunday. As the light failed, he pointed to the window, “This, gentlemen, is what I’m talking about”
In the absence of evidence so stark, it can feel frustratingly hard to galvanize political action. This winter I’ve become more familiar with the corridors of Parliament than I ever could have imagined when playing jazz in the working men’s clubs of 1980s West Yorkshire, or records in Ibizan DJ booths, or farming for 15 years in SW France. After a long time spent working with members of the DEFRA team on an SFI option that would reward farmers for delivering measured nature outcomes whilst growing food (rather than instead of it), the news of the SFI suspension came as an unexpected blow. More immediately, it was a financial nightmare for many farmers, who began to doubt that any future government support could be relied upon.
The message I’ve delivered at various forums over the last few months is always a version of trying to encourage a more holistic view; that the only affordable long term flood protection is supporting farmers to improve infiltration rates in their soils, and paying them to do so isn’t a subsidy but an investment with superb returns. Or that supporting nature rich food production is the only way we are likely to meet legally binding 2030 species recovery targets without offshoring even more of our food supply.
Perhaps the reason why well-applied regen, a solution to so many problems, is being embraced more slowly than it should be, is because it’s a system not a practice. After centuries of scientific advances based on reductionist methodology – a single variable in a controlled environment – our collective ability to think systemically is compromised. System-based research sits outside familiar disciplines. But with the potential of AI to help us understand complexity, soil and ecosystem science should be entering a new golden age.
On 1st January, Ed Brown become head of farming at Wildfarmed. Already his vast experience has been a huge addition for our community of growers. His insights made our late winter open days some of the best received of any Wildfarmed community events.
He and I are working together at my farm, including a first try (for me) at growing rape. With buckwheat and berseem clover companions acting as flea beetle decoys, the crop got off to a good start. Then, late February, the pigeons found it. In a matter of days, they transformed a verdant, leafy canopy into bare earth riddled with stripped and battered stems; a miniature of World War One woodland. Who needs over-winter grazing with pigeons like these?
A week’s worth of astonishingly expensive double action bangers seemed to give the leaves just enough breathing space to get away again. Time will tell what impact the birds have had on yield.
Yet another illustration of why we need nature on farm spreadsheets was illustrated by research which discovered that when swifts are foraging, they seek out the larvae of the cabbage flea beetle.
There has been a 40-50% decline in swifts since 1995, largely linked to declines in insect populations. Meanwhile, Rape continues to be decimated by flea beetle, despite repeated special dispensations to use neonicotinoids. The area sown to Rape has declined 59% since 2012. Yet for those with rent to pay, astronomical machinery costs and no SFI support for the foreseeable future, taking a long-term view on how to get the swifts back is not a realistic option. Collectively, however, we know that we can.
Results from Wildfarmed’s 2024 insect abundance trial with Bristol University across 17 sites are still awaiting peer review, but the headline result was a year-one doubling of insect biomass in Wildfarmed fields compared to neighbouring Conventional controls. One way or another, we must find a way to get this financially rewarded in the same way that we have begun to do for water quality. Farmers can only deliver what they are incentivised to deliver, and this has to include nature-based food production.
A lot of regen discussions are suffering from carbon myopia. This is despite much of recent history being a story of narrow optimisation at the expense of the whole. As an example, when timber was the main driver of economic growth, pioneering 19th century Prussian tree scientists increased production by overseeing the felling of vast tracts of ancient forests, replacing them with managed, fast growing coniferous monocultures. Their yield and carbon numbers were excellent. It was an ecological disaster.
Spring drilling has shone a light on how bad it’s been these last few years. When was the last time when, early April, everything was drilled and there was a moment to watch things grow? On the lower land at Colleymore, where there are still some compaction issues to deal with, it involved a compromise. Whilst the soil surface was dry and it would drill well, a few inches down it was still wet clay. Cultivating to alleviate compaction was not a sensible option. It would wreak havoc on soil structure, create clods that would have to be intensively worked down, and mean losing all the moisture which, in a climate that increasingly oscillates between extremes of wet and dry, we need to retain. So instead, we added a brassica to our wheat and pea combination, in the hope that its tap root would do some of the decompaction work for us. These went in with a dose of fish hydrolysate and seaweed to get microbial activity off to the best possible start.
As we look to scale outcomes measurements across an expanding Wildfarmed area, we’re doing various versions of calibrating physical measurements with AI alternatives; insect pan traps with in-field devices that identify bugs according to the beating of their wings, or SAP analysis with satellite estimates of nitrogen requirements.
This is an extract from the latest Messium satellite update for their trial field at Colleymore. Despite the yield estimate at 7.98T, the prediction is that the final nitrogen dose can be reduced from 40kg to 34kg. But it’s also a stark insight into the importance of timeliness – a difference of days in application dates means the crop would go hungry at a critical point. We’ll be combining this with a Hillcourt Research flag leaf assessment of crop nutrient levels. Before the plant begins its transfer of nutrients into the grain, we want to see if there is adequate nutrition to hit milling spec. If not, a small amount of foliar N will go a long way to correcting it. “Test, don’t guess” as John Kempf is fond of saying. These two data sets should hopefully remove much of the guessing from a good yield of milling spec wheat grown as efficiently as possible.
At Diddly Squat, a Wildfarmed oat and bean crop followed the summer cover crop described in the last bulletin. With the smaller cover crop seeds drilled too deeply, this inevitably left some spaces which blackgrass was all too happy to fill. But the fields nevertheless had an abundance of worms by autumn, something which even Kaleb was smiling about. The oats and beans, planted with a seaweed application, were also coated with a trial batch of Kempf’s Biocoat gold, a microbial and nutritional seed stimulant. There’s no great difference in plant size, but the difference in soil aggregation compared to the other side of the hedge signposts the cumulative biology of cover crop, inoculant and seaweed.
Impressive also to see roots burying into stone…
We’re using the same small doses of carbon coated N as we are at Colleymore, making sure the nitrogen is used as much as possible by the oats and there aren’t excess nitrates for the blackgrass to feed on.
Avoiding these nitrates is of course as critical for waterways as it is for blackgrass control. The roll out of direct-to-Wildfarmed-grower payments from Water Companies continues. Since the last update, Harriet, Rob and the team have now reached agreements with 6 of the 9 biggest providers.
In a show of solidarity that feels sadly distant today, Crew town hall, March 1936, saw 500 representatives of the County Health Authorities, the Farmers’ Union and the medical profession, all gathered to hear the conclusions of Cheshire doctors following their investigation into the nutritional quality of food and its impact on health. The Medical Testament they presented cited reasonable progress in curing disease. But failure in the other half of their brief – preventing sickness.
“yet most of this sickness is preventable and would be prevented by the right feeding of the people. We consider this opinion so important that this document is drawn up in an endeavour to express it and to make it public.”
Informing consumers about the nutritional impact of food grown in living soils is proving to be highly complex. Advertising rules drawn up for a different food system make it very hard to talk about either the absence of toxicity – ie the fact that we test our grain to be free of pesticide residues, or, beyond the basics of fibre, the presence of nutrition
Over the last few years, we’ve measured significant increases in antioxidants in Wildfarmed crops relative to conventional controls. With US company Edacious we’re now taking this into the production process to see what happens to nutritional differences through the milling and baking process.
The Bio Nutrient Institute researched nutritional quality across around 3500 samples of 21 different crops. It’s author, Dan Kittredge, found that:
“despite what you may predict, there wasn’t a clear link between increased nutrient density and the crop being grown in a regenerative or organic-certified system. There was no connection between increased nutritional quality and whether the crop was grown locally, came from a farmer’s market, or a supermarket. Even more surprisingly, nutrient density wasn’t correlated with the levels of macro or micronutrients or carbon in the soil, nor was it correlated with specific regenerative practices…the only factor that consistently predicted increased nutrient density was soil respiration, a key indicator of the amount of life in the soil”
Soil respiration and infiltration are emerging as useful indicators of overall health and are a shorthand perhaps for the connectivity analyses favoured by Andy Neal at Rothamsted, who’s topographical soil videos show subterranean life from a microbe’s perspective. It’s thwarted attempts to move around compacted soils resemble the dark, dead ends of, in Andy’s words, “a 70s housing estate”.
Andy’s recent study at FarmEd shone a light on the endless difficult compromises faced by farmers. After four years of herbal ley, both the fungal / bacterial biomass ratio and soil structure were similar to that observed in undisturbed, permanent pasture. Yet such was the impact of ploughing, cultivation and sowing that, four weeks after planting, the fungal bacterial ratio and structure had reduced to a point where it was no longer significantly different from that observed in the glyphosate managed, continuous wheat plot.
Nicola Canon, professor at the Royal Agricultural University, invited me to speak at her lecture to celebrate the 180th anniversary of the university’s first cohort of 35 students. During the Q&A I was asked what the biggest challenge for Wildfarmed was today. My mind raced with any number of problems we need to solve. But on reflection, it became clear that they are all versions of the same problem. From field to plate, the Wildfarmed team are constantly working with the best available information to optimise the intersection of good farmer outcomes, quality food, nature recovery, and high street affordability. Doing so requires avoiding dogma and embracing nuance. The most difficult challenge of all is embracing nuance in an increasingly binary world. But if we don’t, we won’t solve anything.
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Regenerating the soils of tomorrow: SoilPoint’s answer to the UK’s Agricultural Crisis
As farmers worldwide face the dual challenges of maintaining productivity while transitioning to more sustainable practices, SoilPoint has emerged as a leading innovator in the field of soil health and regenerative agriculture, transforming agricultural practices across the UK and beyond, helping ensure a sustainable future for farming and food security.
Who is SoilPoint?
SoilPoint Humic Co. began in the USA and has expanded globally into UK and European markets. Led by CEO Alan Forrester, who is Chair of the UK Fresh Produce Consortium (FPC), the company brings together an experienced team of farmers, food industry executives, and soil technology experts. Together, they are tackling one of the most pressing challenges of our time: the rapid depletion of the world’s topsoil.
At the heart of SoilPoint’s innovation is their breakthrough Soil Booster – a natural soil conditioner proven to reduce dependence on chemical fertilisers. Certified by the UK Soil Association, Soil Booster contains key macro nutrients as well as 87 essential micronutrients extracted from lignite rock deposits. Using a proprietary process, it achieves 50%-70% pure humic granulates – far exceeding competitors’ 10%-20% concentrations.
Global trials
While conventional fertilisers have been relied upon to provide temporary yield increases, they’ve systematically degraded soil ecosystems worldwide, creating a dependency cycle that threatens long-term food security.
SoilPoint has cracked the industry’s traditional reliance on harsh chemical fertilisers, creating a solution that accelerates topsoil formation and generates up to 1cm every three years or faster, depending on conditions – ultimately proving that higher yields are attainable through sustainable practices that deliver both productive and profitable farming.
Global trials, including studies conducted in the UK, have demonstrated impressive results, boosting crop yields by up to 30%, improving soil water retention, enhancing carbon sequestration in soil and biomass and reducing greenhouse gas emissions in comparison to conventional farming practices.
In March 2025, SoilPoint partnered with Cefetra Ltd, a leading UK Grain business and agricultural supply chain specialist, to launch a pioneering soil health initiative in the UK. This initiative is built alongside 36 forward thinking farmers to replace a proportion of their synthetic fertiliser usage with SoilPoint’s Soil Booster, running for a full crop cycle measuring yields, crop quality, soil health, nutrient availability, and carbon emissions. This partnership marks the first phase of a long-term commercial relationship through which Cefetra will offer SoilPoint’s Soil Booster to UK farmers as part of its product portfolio.
Alan Forrester, CEO of SoilPoint, commented:
“Our data suggests that, if the UK continues to lose soil at current rates, it may face significant threats to future harvests. SoilPoint Soil Booster offers a natural and proven way to rejuvenate soils, supporting productivity and environmental improvements at the same time.
Visit www.soilpoint.earth today to discover the best solutions for your crops. SoilPoint’s Soil Booster is available as either a granule or a fine power, compatible with your existing nutrition and crop protection delivery methods.
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Farmer Focus – David Aglen
Mar 2025
Reflections on learnings and change.
We are moving on to pastures new, after nearly 15 years at Balbirnie Home Farms in Fife, I have taken up a post managing an arable farming business a bit further north that has yet to begin the adventure that is regen ag. This is a great time to look back on what we have achieved and most importantly learned, as we changed a business to rely less on synthetic inputs, and more on what nature would provide. Don’t misunderstand me here, we were still far from organic on the arable front, but had made big inroads to reducing fungicide usage. Herbicides, on the other hand are a bigger challenge, I struggled to reach the eutopia of a cover crop that could be successfully crimped down as the next crop was sown. I think the first crops to be grown like this commercially in the Scotland are likely to be some form of brassica vegetable. The technology exists, we just need the will to give it a go.
Direct drilling has been both challenging at times, and hugely rewarding at other times. There is no doubt that the financial savings are real. The soil and environment have benefited hugely as well. Seeing the drains running with clean water in the winter is very satisfying, especially so when the drains from a nearby cultivated field may be running with dirty water at the same time. What we now know is that no-till needs to be balanced with judicious use of appropriate of cultivation, and dare I say it, the plough.
Changes with the livestock side of the business have been equally dramatic. We have moved from a hugely intensive system, where cattle were housed for most of the winter to one where all stock classes are never housed. The cost savings have been staggering.
Cattle are now far more integrated into the arable side of the business, grazing cover crops as the opportunities arise, and even replacing a portion of combinable crops as an enterprise competing for land, where the margin per hectare is attractive, and that is before we even consider the fertility and soil health benefits.
It has not all been plain sailing, reducing nitrogen inputs has been a greater challenge. I have concluded that, in the short term, this needs to be that last input that is reduced. We just need to find ways to minimize the waste that is inherent in the use of artificial N as well as growing and building more nitrogen building crops into our rotation. Perhaps these will take the form of summer cover crops cycled through livestock to generate an income, or more efficient ways to apply the artificial N that we do need to use.
Finding a good rotation has been challenging also. Vegetables and potatoes produce a good income stream and are good break crops, whether that be grown ourselves or renting out fields to others. The requirement for intensive cultivations is not so good though and seems to set the soil back a few years afterwards. The reality is that these crops are a food source and so need to be grown, the aim is to build the soil health back up again in the intervening years. This is where the judicious use of cultivation comes in to get the following crop established well to start the healing process, allowing the direct drilling to resume the second season after veg.
Of course, none of this would have been possible without the support of the Balfour family in allowing me to try things that were a bit different. And of course the team I leave behind, who have worked beside me, Colin Black and Grant Ross. Over the years they have had to endure endless experiments and mad ideas, as well as adding their own at times. Thank you all very much for the help and support over the years, and I wish you all the very best for the future.
And so now it is exciting to embark on a new challenge. Smaller in scale than I have been used to, and with no cows for the time being (looking forward to a few more weekends off though), but, size isn’t everything. I will be leaning on my peers in organisations such as BASE-UK to offer helpful suggestions as to how we proceed as the pressure both financially and environmentally is increased on our industry. I have no doubt that I will be hosting farm walks in the future, allowing me to pick peoples brains for new suggestions.
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Agronomist in Focus – Harry Molton
“Roots, Rotation and Resilience: The first steps to a more productive and profitable future.
The need for a more resilient and productive farming system is clear, but moving forward requires a shift from short-term yields to long-term sustainability.
Transitioning to a regenerative or more sustainable system involves practices that rebuild soil health, enhance biodiversity, and improve climate resilience. Whether it’s cover cropping, rotational grazing, or reducing synthetic inputs, every step towards regeneration leads to a more productive and profitable future.
However, this transition requires careful planning and a willingness to embrace change. At Indigro, we’ve helped many clients on this journey. Here are the key steps to help you get started.
Understanding the Principles
Regenerative agriculture begins with minimising soil disturbance. On many soils, this takes time — few in the UK can switch from conventional tillage to direct drilling overnight. Building soil structure gradually is key to supporting no-till.
Our second regenerative principle is maintaining soil cover all year. Cover crops fill the gap between cash crops — such as between winter wheat and spring barley. Catch crops or summer covers can make use of long summer days to drive photosynthesis, increasing soil organic carbon.
We’ve also seen success establishing clover understories, which help maintain cover, suppress weeds, and improve diversity.
Clover Understory Maximising Diversity of both cash crops, and cover crops boosts biodiversity – another key facet of regenerative farming. While cover crop mixtures are easily tailored, consider adding a companion crop to increase the diversity within the cash crop. If flowering species are chosen, they can also provide a pollen source for invertebrates.
Diverse rooting systems play a vital role – taproots break compaction, fibrous roots condition soil. Maintaining living roots in the soilat all timesallows your soils to thrive. Fields or areas of fields left fallow can deteriorate, affecting soil health and subsequent crops.
Finally, where possible, integrate livestock into the farming system.
These principles form the foundation of regenerative farming. At Indigro, we see them as good farming practices — guidelines to support decision-making, not rigid rules. Especially in the early stages of moving towards a more sustainable system. It’s about making steady progress, not achieving perfection from day one.
Start with Assessment
When advising a transition to a regen system, we start with a thorough farm assessment.
Firstly, review drainage plans, check drain condition, fix issues, and mark outfalls. We carry out a Record of Condition (RoC) alongside Visual Soil Assessments (VSAs), looking at compaction layers and recording earthworm numbers.
Earthworms are the excavators, decomposers, and cultivators of our soils — a hidden workforce driving soil health. Their presence offers insight into soil condition, with studies showing they can contribute up to 25% of yield increases in sustainable systems.
In-depth soil analysis helps to identify problem areas and creates a baseline for progress. Understand your topography, erosion risk, rotation history, available equipment, and labour. The more you know at the start, the easier it is to measure improvement.
Use Cover Crops as a Starting Point
Cover crops are one of the simplest ways to begin. They improve soil biology, manage weeds, prevent leaching, and boost organic matter. The key is to define your objectives first; that will guide the right seed mix, tailored to your soil type and desired outcome. This may change from one year to the next.
Most farms already include spring crops, so an overwinter cover crop is a logical entry point. Choose a seed mix suited to your farm and objectives—legumes for nitrogen fixation, buckwheat for phosphate, deep-rooters for compaction etc.
Drill covers promptly after harvest, into moisture, and with care. Seed mixes contain different sizes that separate in transit or hoppers, so fill the drill little and often. Depth should suit the smallest seeds or use split hoppers to drill separately.
Covers should be managed like cash crops — timeliness, seedbed prep, and slug control matter.
Winter Cover Crop Soil Structure Appropriate Tillage
When you first decide to begin your regenerative journey, it can be very tempting to acquire a shiny new direct drill. However, eliminating tillage overnight is often impractical and does not achieve the desired outcome.
We often talk about “earning the right” to no-till. This refers to ensuring your soil can support a no-till approach through good soil structure and drainage. Gradually reducing tillage over time will help you build the required structure and resilience in your soils to allow no-till.
Diversity in plants is key to a regen system, as is, diversity in tillage. This doesn’t mean changing tillage approach year-on-year, but addressing problems based on their needs.
If turning headlands are compacted, low disturbance sub-soiling will help alleviate this issue. If grassweeds are an issue, utilising stale seedbeds prior to drilling is wise. A light disc or straw rake may help. And in some cases, even ploughing may be the right tool for the job.
While ploughing isn’t associated with regenerative agriculture, it can have a place. Achieving the best crop establishment is key and we therefore must choose the most appropriate cultivation to achieve this. Risking having bare ground, is arguably more damaging to soil health than a well-considered appropriate cultivation.
Focus on outcomes rather than dogma. Strategic use of cultivation can help set a farm on the path to a more resilient, regenerative system. The key is to use these tools deliberately and sparingly, always with the end goal of long-term sustainability. Each farm’s soil type, cultivation history and cropping system will influence how long it takes to move to a no-till system.
Boost Farm Biodiversity
Monocultures have been shown to deplete soil health and increase pest and disease pressure, so increasing biodiversity is central to regenerative farming.
Introducing a variety of plant species supports microbiology and reduces reliance on chemical inputs. Bi-cropping, variety blends, catch and cover cropping are great tools.
Winter Cover Crop In combinable crops, focus on diversifying rotations and integrating livestock.
Soil microbial activity can be enhanced by the integration of livestock. Rotational grazing of cover crops and or cereals accelerates soil health improvements and reduces reliance on inputs, as well as recycling nutrients. If direct integration isn’t feasible, partnering with a local livestock farmer might be an option.
Be Patient, Think Long-Term
Perhaps the most important principle to remember when transitioning your farm is that regenerative agriculture is not a one-size-fits-all approach. What one farm sees as regenerative, may look very different to another’s system — and that’s okay.Success lies in finding what works for your soils and your business.
One of the best things you can do is to assess your soils by eye — dig holes, get your hands dirty, and build a feel for what you’re seeing. That intuitive understanding becomes your personal benchmark, helping you track progress in a way that no report ever could.
Alongside that, monitor soil health indicators, crop performance, and input costs. Use tools like soil testing, infiltration tests, and aerial imagery to guide decisions.
Build flexibility into your strategy and be prepared to adapt. There’s a growing network of farmers across the country all on this journey — tap into it. Above all, be patient. Regenerative farming is a long-term shift. Challenges are inevitable, but improved soil health brings reduced inputs, greater resilience to weather extremes, and ultimately, more consistent yields — all contributing to a more sustainable future.
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New living mulches guide to help boost soil health and farm resilience
Farmers looking to enhance soil health, increase resilience, and improve sustainability now have a powerful resource at their fingertips.
The newly released Agricology Living Mulches Technical Guide provides clear, practical advice on implementing living mulch strategies that deliver tangible benefits across farms of all sizes.
Living mulches are semi-permanent legume understories sown beneath cereal crops in the first year. By the second year, once the cover crop mulch is well established, new crops are direct drilled into it. This method integrates key regenerative agriculture practices, combining elements of intercropping, cover cropping, mulching, and undersowing to enhance soil health and improve biodiversity.
Co-created in response to farmers’ questions, the free-to-access guide builds on four years of research conducted through an Innovative Farmers Field Lab, further studies by the Organic Research Centre, and insights from UK farmers who have trialled living mulches. It is designed to offer clarity and step-by-step guidance on effectively adopting this innovative practice.
When managed effectively, living mulches can improve soil structure and fertility, reduce runoff and erosion, and enhance nitrogen availability for future crops. They can also boost in-field biodiversity, suppress annual weed populations, and lower production costs. However, without proper management, living mulches can also present challenges, including competition with crops, potential yield penalties, and increased perennial weed burdens.
Structured around the farming year, the guide focuses on the living mulch journey season by season – from spring establishment and summer field management, to harvest and autumn transition into a fully living mulch system and concluding with winter mulch management. Each seasonal chapter clearly outlines the actions required, important considerations and potential risks, providing a practical, time-based roadmap to help farmers plan, adapt and trial the system at their own pace.
It concludes with a detailed diary of Matt England’s observations and reflections from trialling living mulches on the Fring Estate in Norfolk over the course of three years.
While there are multiple ways to integrate living mulches, this guide focuses on a low-input system with alternative strategies and additional insights provided for those working within conventional farming systems.
Matt Smee, Head of Agricology at the Organic Research Centre, says that living mulches are a great tool for farmers seeking sustainable and efficient farming practices.
“Every farm is unique, every season brings new challenges, and no two years are the same. With this in mind, the guide provides a framework that allows farmers to tailor living mulch practices to suit their specific needs,” he says.
Along with the guide, an online learning journey exploring different approaches to getting started with living mulches has been created that you can find on the website in the form of the ‘Living Mulch Hub.’ It brings together a wide mix of resources; research papers, videos, tools, blogs and case studies, sourced from the Agricology archive and beyond.
To access the free online learning journey and the full Living Mulches Technical Guide, visit www.agricology.co.uk/resource/living-mulches-technical-guide/
Agricology (www.agricology.co.uk) is an independent knowledge platform that supports all farmers and growers in transitioning to more sustainable and resilient farming systems. It is a free platform open to everyone and was established in response to the increasing challenges of declining soil fertility, climate change, biodiversity loss, and the need to rethink the way land is managed. It brings together research from the field and farmer experiences on using practices that restore the farm ecosystem. These include reducing tillage to improve soil quality, planting cover crops, adding pollinator strips, using trap crops (which divert pests from crops instead of using chemicals), and using agroforestry systems.
Agricology was founded in 2015, is a collaboration between over 40 organisations, and is managed and delivered by the Organic Research Centre.
For more information contact Matt Smee on [email protected]
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Farmer Focus – Tim Parton
At the time of writing things are getting dry! Are we in for another dry spring? The last time the moon was in the present orbit was the 1700s and they had the same weather as we are experiencing now (so I read as I am not that old), going from floods to drought. They got through it then so I am sure we will cope! The importance for having healthy soil has never been more significant in my opinion, in order to cope with the extremes we are experiencing.
Fortunately, I am mobile again and have been out giving a lot of talks and on-farm consultancy: so nice to see different people’s approaches around the country, but all aiming to improve their soil while making a profit.
As Green Farm Collective, we launched our flour brand through Eurostar commodities called “Rise”, down at the International Food and Drink show, at the excel building in London. Attention around our certified Regen flour was fantastic! I was asked to speak on a Regen panel while attending with Claire Mackenzie (Six Inches of Soil), Andy Neil (Rothamsted research), Dave Smith (Fielden’s whiskey) and Henry Astor (Bruern Farm). Henry supplies Fielden whiskey with rye and wheat farmed with no cides.
We had great fun on the panel with lots of interest from the audience about regenerative produce. Whenever I give a talk to consumers, I always get the question, where can I buy this food? I have never really been able to give an answer but now finally I can say, here! This is just the start in my opinion; the right education needs to be given, and full transparency needs to occur. Consumers should have the right to see the full journey of their food and have the right to be part of the story helping to heal the planet in which we live. Change in my opinion always comes from the people; as together we do have power. Just the same, it’s always been one of my aims to unite farmers across the world as together we have power but as individuals, we have very little.
Tasting the pizza made from our flour was a true delight and one of the best pizzas I have ever had, which was probably helped along by the fact that the much-acclaimed Italian pizza chef, Marco Greco, making the Pizza. He made it look so easy, flipping the dough above his head etc, but of course it was all down to such a fine dough as you can see from the picture of my loaf of bread pictured. This is giving our growers a good premium of delivered bread wheat. We are still delivering carbon deals while still pursuing more avenues for our wheat.
Crops have come out of the winter well with roots getting down to good depths and biologically active. At the time of writing wheats had only received 20kg/ha of ammonium sulphate plus foliar applications of foliar nutrition in order to get them ready for an active immune system for the coming growing season. You can see from the picture attached they certainly are not hungry for N. It often horrifies me to see how much N has gone onto crops so early when the crop is not growing and a lot of that N could get converted into nitrate which is going to cause a lot of weak cell growth, which in turn, will lead to use of fungicides and pest attack. Supplying the plant with the right nutrition is crucial to allow photosynthesis and for plants to be putting out the right exudates to feed biology and endophytes within the plant.
I feel that biology invented plants in order to get fed and we can see from the planet’s evolution that fungi and bacteria did create the very planet in which we live, finding a superb way to store carbon within soil and marine undersea Algae, plants and coral, with 93% of carbon stored within our oceans making it the largest store on the planet. It didn’t take human beings long to mess everything up did it? With the human body containing 30 trillion human cells and about 38 trillion bacteria, so are we in control ? When you look at the difference having the right biology within our gut in coalition with health, the similarities between and our gut and soil health is so very similar in my opinion and obtaining the right mix for optimum health and production is paramount. I like the work of Dr Mary Lucero who has shown the benefits of using endophytes from plants that have the desired outcomes for the right environment, protection and yield. The possibilities of using endophytes are endless in my opinion and one that should be explored far more, which are far safer and more natural than the damage that gene editing or GMO’s can do to our health or the environment.
Biology has all the answers and mother nature will always win in my experience, but the sooner we start to work with Her, the better, rather than thinking we know better! All problems can be overcome with biology and nutrition. The problem is, there is not enough money in it to attract big business to develop it further and so we continue down the path of synthetic inputs and DNA manipulation, which to me is always to the detriment to the grower/farmer from a financial point of view… or am I just a cynic?
Seeing how work with fungi and the benefits biology can bring dates back into the 1800s I feel that biology has been ignored for far too long and that change is going to have to come from us, as growers, to get the shift that is required to make change. Change never comes from government or authorities in my experience, it always comes from the people or corporations that require change for financial gain. We have the power to create change, but we need to come together as one voice, in order to have the power.
