Back Issues

If you would like a printed copy of any of our back issues, then they can be purchased on Farm Marketplace. You can also download the PDFs or read online from links below.

Buy Back issues

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 editor@farmideas.co.uk or 07778877514.
Nitrogen Uptake and Release in Cover Crops

By Andrea Basche, Assistant Professor in Cropping Systems, Source: University of Nebraska Extension

With growing interest in cover crops, it is important to understand how cover crops might impact soil fertility for the following cash crop. Nitrogen (N) provided by cover crop biomass may be used in the short-term by the following crop, and in the long-term through improving soil N content and reducing fertilizer input costs. The availability of soil nitrogen is a function of residual soil N (or nitrogen present in the soil) and N mineralized (released by the organic pools in the soil) from previous crop residues. However, environmental and management factors greatly influence cover crop decomposition dynamics, making it a challenge to consistently and accurately predict the amount of N that will become available, or when it will become available, to a subsequent crop.

We compiled field studies from Nebraska and other corn-producing states that evaluated the range of biomass production of cover crops, the amount of N in their biomass, and their C:N ratio (Table 1). While these studies do not provide exact estimates of when N is available to subsequent crops, they can give us some information to help inform nutrient changes following cover crops.

Nitrogen Uptake by Legume Versus Grass Cover Crops

Cover crops acquire N through the uptake of nitrate and ammonium from the soil. When cover crops decompose, N is recycled back to the soil. Leguminous cover crops, owing to their symbiosis with rhizobia, can acquire N from the air (biological N fixation). When this N is released during decomposition, it is a net gain of N, so legumes are typically thought of as an N source or supplier. However, not all N in legume biomass is fixed N, as legume may take up considerable amounts of N from the soil (Redfearn, 2016).

The N in clover and vetch varieties commonly used in annual cropping systems can vary widely (Tonitto & Drinkwater, 2006). Among the studies included in Table 1, Nebraska hairy vetch biomass production was in the lower range with 364 to 724 lb/ac, which contained 12 to 29 lb N/ac. Red clover was more productive with 78 lb N/ac. In the Eastern United States, cover crops, especially hairy vetch, had more biomass and N, probably due to milder and wetter climates.

Winter cereals are commonly used in the Midwest as cover crops because of their winter hardiness and high early-spring biomass production. They are also very effective in taking up mineral N and are ‘scavengers’ for nutrients that have moved to the lower part of the root zone, rescuing nutrients that may otherwise be lost (Bergtold et al., 2017). In Nebraska, rye produced between 1,312 and 2,072 lb/ac of biomass, which contained between 34 and 54 lb N/ac (Table 1).

When Does the Nitrogen From Cover Crop Residue Become Available?

Cover crop N release should be synchronized with N demand of the succeeding crop. The N accumulated in the cover crop biomass will be available to crop absorption after mineralization, which depends on soil moisture and temperature, soil type, and the carbon to nitrogen ratio (C:N ratio) of the biomass (Gil and Fick, 2001). The C:N ratio is the amount of carbon in cover crop biomass divided by the amount of N. It is often used to predict how fast soil microbes will breakdown residue and release residue N back to the soil. Microbes use the carbon in residues for energy and the N for protein (think growth). A C:N ratio of 24:1 is considered “ideal” as it has the balance of carbon to N that soil microbes need. Residues with greater C:N ratios will decompose slower because there is not enough N for microbial growth. To decompose residue with high C:N ratios, microbes take up N from the soil, thus immobilizing or “tying up” N. Residues with C:N ratios lower than 24:1 decompose quickly, and because there is more N than microbes need, N will be available for the next crop (USDA, 2011).

Legumes residues typically have lower C:N ratio (Table 1) and decompose more rapidly than grasses, providing readily available N to the subsequent crop. However, if the subsequent crop cannot take up the N, there is potential for loss. Cereal rye residues often have high C:N ratios and may immobilize soil N. Because of that starter fertilizer is typically recommended to overcome immobilization, with a rate between 30–50 pounds of actual N per acre (Midwest Cover Crop Council, 2019).

Figure 1. Estimated cumulative nitrogen release of cereal rye and hairy vetch residue over 16 wk of decomposition with corn growth stages. (Sievers and Cook, 2018)

An experiment in 2015 in Carbondale, IL, assessed the time it took for N from a legume (in this case, hairy vetch) and grass cover crop (cereal rye) to be released. Hairy vetch rapidly decomposed and released about 70 lb N/ac within the first 4 weeks after corn planting (Fig. 1). Cereal rye residues released less than 10 lb N/ac during that same period, and overall released much less N (Sievers & Cook, 2018).

Some strategies, such the incorporation of the residues, can result in faster N release. The use of mixes of grasses and legumes can also modify the C:N ratio and speed up decomposition.

The Bottom Line: Consider Your Species, Biomass, and Environmental Conditions

Biomass production, N uptake, and C:N ratio vary widely across the United States, with Nebraska on the lower end of productivity. The N in cover crop biomass will be released within a few weeks after termination, however, decomposition varies with soil moisture, soil temperature and C:N ratios. Therefore, not all biomass N will be available for the subsequent crop. A better understanding of cover crop N release and cash crop N uptake can help to optimize crop synchrony and the choice of species to grow.

Some cover crop species have the potential to produce a high amount of biomass, providing great soil protection and reduce nitrate leaching, but they may not be suitable as an N source for a subsequent crop. Mixing cover crop species can overcome shortfalls of individual species and should be explored in more detail.

Table 1. List of cover crop species and their biomass production (in lb/ac), nitrogen in the biomass (in lb N/ac), and C:N ratio in studies from different locations across the United States. The studies highlighted in green were carried out in Nebraska.
New Developments in Robotisation

HORSCH has been pursuing topics like automation and robotisation for quite some time. Michael Horsch tells us how the idea for the Gantry was born, how it develops further and where the journey will lead to.

How did HORSCH come up with the idea of the
Gantry?

We have been dealing with the aspects of automation and the construction of robots for farming for quite a long time. The trigger for the Gantry was a problem that mainly came from South America. For approx. five to six years, we have been selling our 18 metre Maestros over there, especially in Brazil, to large soya and maize farmers. These farms have understood how a reasonable cultivation strategy works on their sites, they seed directly and successfully manage catch crops. Thus, there are more humus and nutrients in the soil, and it can keep more water. Catch crops have become the key for progress in Brazil – especially the right catch crop mixtures, sown properly and at the right time. Thus, direct seeding works without tillage and loosening in the long term. Only on sandy soils do you have to loosen the soil additionally– a pass you can use in turn to place a fertiliser depot in deeper layers. However, the problem of most of the farmers over there is that they do not get enough employees for the cultivation of their large fields. This is why they prefer to have one or two larger machines than several small ones.

The requirement are machines with 24 m or even larger working widths. But from an engineering point of view there is a magical limit – 18 m. It still folds easily, the machine weight is relatively low and it is very stable. From 24 m, the machines become very heavy, and the weight is where you need it least – namely in the middle. To be able to cope with the powers during the folding process, this is where much stability and thus weight is required. We focused on this problem and discussed what would make sense to prevent the machine from becoming too large and too heavy but still heavy enough for direct seeding and especially with a good distribution of the weight over the whole working width. This is why we came up with the idea of the Gantry. However, we did not invent it.

Where does the idea for the Gantry originally
come from?

The idea for the Gantry already is about 40 years old. Since the beginning of the 80s, I have been following this development in England, e.g. at the National College of Agricultural Engineering in Silsoe. Today, besides us, some companies deal with this idea – with quite interesting applications – and also with the aspect of automation. Many manufacturers, universities and start-ups often focus on small, all-electrically driven robots. They mainly think of a use in clusters. There already are companies that commercialise it. We took a look a Farm droid and we noticed that the people working there are very pragmatic young people who have an agricultural background. They tackle the subject with a very practical approach what, in my opinion, makes the whole thing feasible rather quickly. If you try to work theoretically and to realise things on small test fields, you will proceed much slower.

To begin with, we focused on large working width, fully automated sowing processes etc.

Especially large 12 and 18 m seed drills which fold towards the front and have compact transport widths and large hoppers can be automated quite well. Of course, we have to continue to make tests and to develop ideas. In past years during which we carried out test runs with the robots, one of our first findings was that there are only little possible savings with regard to staff. The tasks only change when you do no longer sit in the cabin, but you have to check that the machine does what it is supposed to do and you permanently optimise the adjustments for an optimum work result – and all this often by simply running after the machine.

What will it be like in the future?

We are proceeding quite fast, but there still is a lot of software work to do, e.g. with regard to track planning or surroundings detection. And there is a lot of know-how. But we are only proceeding this fast due to our test efforts in the field, especially on our own test farm Agro Vation. We already tackled the subject of Controlled Traffic Farming about twelve years ago. We wanted to see if you can get more efficiency out of the machines and if it has an effect on soils structure and thus on the yields if you make all passes on one fixed track and no longer drive over the rest. We learnt that this also was the first step towards robotics, that we have to plan the tracks and digitalise the fields. From an agronomic point of view, however, Controlled Traffic did not achieve what we hoped for. At the harvest, it makes most sense to move the high loads on fixed tracks. Especially during the maize harvest, it often is wet and the wheat that is grown after the maize suffers. In this case, CTF is very advantageous. Now and then we noticed a few effects on heavy soils. If it was wet and in case of fixed tracks, there were small effects in the population development and in the yields in a one-digit percentile range.

What was also obvious: if tillage is exclusively been carried out with CTF, the soils inevitably become uneven. In Australia, where farmers have been working with direct seeding and CTF for years, the farmers made the same experiences. If you drive on the track in the same direction every year, the result are longitudinal and cross corrugations. And this affects tillage and sowing quality as well as the operational speed for example when spraying. We also partly noticed that it is quite difficult to follow the soil with a combine if there is lodged grain. And in addition: If you drive in a fixed track, the track – no matter where it is – becomes a “dirt track”. Everyone knows what becomes of a dirt track after several years. There are potholes, it is uneven and especially if it is wet, it is very difficult to drive on.

What does the HORSCH Gantry solution look like? How did it develop further?

Our motivation was: We do not want to build another heavy machine that compacts the soil. We choose the Gantry way – with two wheels at the front, two at the rear and the frame is positioned between the wheels. In our case, the front axle is wider – it is based on a 12 m track. The rear axle is based on a 4 m track. The reason is that in this case it isn’t one single track that is always driven over twice. For if it is wet and you drive over the same track twice, even between the rows, you might cause quite amess resulting in intense compactions. Last year around Christmas during Covid my brother and I again discussed this subject and suddenly we had the idea not to build a 24 m maize seed drill which with too small wheels and too much weight in the middle section would only be a bad compromise but to design the machine as a robot. This is how the Gantry idea was born – in a slightly modified form with the frame in the middle etc. At the beginning of January, we brought one of our engineers into the project to complete the design and to build the machine.

What is the current state of affairs? Are there
still any problems?

We are currently in the test stage. At the end of May, the Gantry was sent to Brazil to carry out tests on large fields. In Germany, the options for these tests are few – the Gantry is too wide and has no homologation for road service. What we are still working on is the software issue. It is quite easy to solve from a technical point of view. As always, the main work is carried out by the software. But there still is along way to go until the sensor system makes the machine react fast enough, until everything does what it is supposed to do. What is again and again proven during the field tests is that you can achieve a significantly higher efficiency and work quality if you do without a cabin. The cabin sometimes is diverted from its intended use to take a little rest. But the advantage also is that you gain a lot of installation space. Accessibility is improved considerably. You can access everything – even from below. The design of the frame, especially of the main frame, is simple, elegant and first and foremost particularly stable.

This way, you can also build wider machines. With our concept, we could go to 30 or even 36m. Due to the large hoppers, we generate a wider coverage, and we can place them where most of the weight is required. Of course, you will eventually reach a limit of what four wheels can carry. 40 to 50 t on the wheels will be critical, especially with regard to the turning process if the seed frame is lifted or in wet conditions. The whole machine almost weighs 30 t, plus 10 to 15 t of seed – the weight quickly adds up. But still the concept is more manageable than a design with separate parts. When sowing directly, the weight has to be distributed evenly to where the row bodies are positioned, even right outside. The wider the machine is, the more difficult it is to put this into practice.

Which sectors can be automated with such
ideas?

With regard to automation, in my opinion it is important to tackle the topics that can most easily be put into practice, that have to do with sowing, plant protection, fertilisation and mechanical weed control. Tillage does not have top priority. It is not so complicated and is more or less carried out alongside. To automate harvest processes, however, is extremely complicated. We are far from having a harvest machine drive on the field without a driver – no matter if it is a combine, a potato or a sugar beet harvester. In this sector, there are way too many influencing factors. Everyone who has ever threshed for example lodged grain with a combine knows what a challenge it is.
Does No-Till Means Less Nitrous Oxide in the Atmosphere?

Chris Fellows reviews important research into this ignored gas which pollutes our atmosphere.

Reducing tillage could result in less production of a potent greenhouse gas, according to a study out of Penn State University.

Nitrous oxide, also known as “laughing gas,” is the most important greenhouse gas after methane and carbon dioxide and the biggest human-related threat to the ozone layer. But is talked about less.

Nitrous oxide emissions from human activities have ballooned 30 percent over the past four decades. Although carbon dioxide has been responsible for about 10 times as much warming as nitrous oxide. But nitrous oxide is more potent: 1kg of the gas warms the atmosphere some 300 times more than 1kg of carbon does over a 100-year period. With Nitrous Oxide staying in the atmosphere for around a century after release. In arable farming N2O is emitted naturally as part of the nitrification process it is a by product of the application of nitrogen fertilisers.

The paper that researched this is called “Tillage intensity and plant rhizosphere selection shape bacterial-archaeal assemblage diversity and nitrogen cycling genes” and was published in the journal “Soil and Tillage Research.” You can read the whole paper here: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167198722002112

Abstract

We evaluated bulk and rhizosphere soils from two crop years (corn and soybean) of a three-year rotation of corn-soybean-small grain + cover crop. Soil samples were collected at three growth stages from corn and soybean plants and across three tillage practices that had been applied every year for 40 years. Tillage practices represented three levels of disturbance intensity ranging from no-till, to intermediate to high (plough) intensities. Bacterial assemblage diversity differed in soils having contrasting tillage histories and from bulk or rhizosphere soil (compartments), crop year, and growth stage. Compared to ploughed and disc soils, no-till soils had lower abundances of denitrification genes, higher abundances of genes for dissimilatory nitrate reduction to ammonium (DNRA), and higher abundances of family-level taxa associated with archaeal nitrification and anammox. Soybean rhizospheres exerted stronger selection on bacterial-archaeal composition and diversity relative to corn rhizospheres. Abundances of N genes were grouped by factors related to weather, as well as management and soil compartment, which could impact activity related to denitrification and DNRA. Low intensity tillage may provide an option to reduce potential ‘hot spots’ or ‘hot moments’ for N losses in agricultural soils, although weather and crop type are also important factors that can influence how tillage affects microbial assemblages and microbial N use.

Notes from the Paper

Researchers ultimately found DNA evidence that members of families of bacteria capable of turning N into ammonium were more common in bulk no-tilled soil than in soils for minimum or high tillage. What is more, no-till soils contained fewer genes for bacteria known to create N2O from nitrogen.

Conclusion

Results of this study suggest that minimizing disturbances to agricultural soils may provide an opportunity for reducing N2O emissions.
Farmer Focus – Andrew Jackson

October 2022

Many farmers have been surprised at their yields this year, the starting point must have been a kind autumn and winter, but it appears that sunlight in June contributes more to yield than we thought and rainfall to the beginning of harvest (6 months), was 207mm, could be of less importance. Like the Monty Python Four Yorkshire men sketch some might say that ‘I was lucky’ to have 207mm, nevertheless combined with the hot sunny weather, the soils had become dry and hard.

We have a small flock of sheep and after watching a YouTube presentation by Christine Jones on Quorum Sensing (essentially highlighting the benefits of herbal leys), it has been our ambition to rejuvenate our permanent pasture into a mixed species herbal ley. Some of you better farmers may not have had problems with the establishment, however we tried direct drilling into our grass, but the grass was too competitive, then we tried spraying off the grass, but the decaying grass emits an acidity which hinders new seed germination.

Currently we have sprayed off the grass in summer and sown the part field down to stubble turnips and kale, with the intention of sowing our herbal ley in the spring. I am aware that the Australians have a type of rotavator complete with a seeder and this could also be an option to try in the future. Once again, we have reduced our nitrogen rates to 160 Kg/N/Ha and this has provided acceptable yields. We have also trialled the application of foliar Nitrogen, the trial yields could have been better.

The conclusion in my path to understanding the potential of foliar nitrogen will be to apply two normal nitrogen applications in March to winter sown crops, which will be followed up by subsequent foliar nitrogen applications which may contain Sap analysis product amendments. In April, we experienced blockages within the liquid fertiliser application system, which is fitted to our Horizon drill, this was totally my fault due to my preference to apply some lumpy biological product. Aware that Tim Parton had peristaltic pumps fitted to his John Deere drill, I called Tim and asked for the details of who developed and installed the peristaltic pump, it turned out to be Trevor Tappen who had a stand at Groundswell.

After clarifying the correct number of noughts from Trevor’s quotation and sitting down for five minutes, I decided to bite the bullet and have the pump fitted to my drill. I have used the system this autumn to apply nitrogen and fish hydrolysate when sowing OSR and Grass seed, so far so good. Last autumn I decided to drill my OSR with an all-legume companion crop, the chosen species were, Crimson clover, Rivendale white clover (ground hugging), Berseem clover and Black Medic (a prostrate trefoil). In the middle of May all the legumes and the OSR were in flower, the field looked a picture.

The rape yield was respectable, but I am not sure how much nitrogen the legumes brought to the party, maybe the residual nitrogen will show up in the following crop. Two winter wheat fields were sown with seed dressed with Johnson Su seed dressing, one of the fields was within the foliar trial but the other received the 160 Kg/N/Ha and yielded a respectable 10t/Ha Unfortunately, combine yield maps failed to detect any benefit from my Johnson Su, this has not deterred me, and I will continue with these trials. We also made some static compost from chopped grass stalks (left behind a stripper header where grass seed was harvested), chopped straw, volcanic rock dust and some bokashi mix.

This was a compost based on the work of the German scientist Walter Witte with very few comparables in this country. The PLFA results showed that the compost, which we left on a pad for nearly a year was high in bacteria, fungi, and protozoa, with a good bacteria to fungi ratio, the only low reading was the PFLA diversity. The product has now been spread on a field coming second wheat at 25 tonnes per Ha. We will not know the contribution of the static compost until next harvest. We have been advised to have the SSM gold standard soil test, which although more expensive has provided some useful feedback. The highlight for us is the raising of the soil organic matter levels within the last 10 years, ten fields have shown and average percentage increase of 1.81, this does not sound a lot, but coming from a low base the results indicate a 97% increase leaving all but one very sandy field nicely above 3% organic matter and heading in the right direction. After twelve years of being a cereal seed grower, which has been a blessing in disguise regarding keeping black grass populations low.

I have concluded that the seed premiums offered do not currently reflect the huge swings in commodity prices especially when I sell at the lowest price point in the year, I have tried to navigate this with futures trading but some years you can be up and others down. Therefore, even though I am a bit late to the party, I have ordered eleven varieties of wheat with the view of growing a blend and retaining the home saved seed for futures years, I may regret this move when I am completing the royalties declaration. My daughter Anna who only took up farming two years ago after a career in photography has been approached by Colin Ramsay and Claire Mackenzie to participate in the film Six Inches of Soil.

Consequently, Colin and his sound assistant have visited us periodically throughout the season and there was also some filming at Groundswell together with the other participants who feature in the film. Groundswell was once again blessed with good weather and the event seems to move on from strength to strength, I was keen to maximise on the bar in the evening so together with a new expensive ground mat and sleeping bag, we camped once again. My lasting memory of the evening was leaving two farmers propping up the corner post of the marquee or was it propping them up?

Looking to the future, the Six Inches of Soil crew have arranged for Anna and I to visit John Pawsey, a farmer who I admire and Direct Driller columnist whose articles are better than Jeremy Clarkson’s. Speaking of Jeremy, I believe that his program Clarkson’s Farm was universally enjoyed, even by the people who had not enjoyed his bombastic approach as seen in Top Gear. My youngest daughter works with a friend of Jeremy’s, and I hatched a plan to ask this young man to give Jeremy a copy of Dirt to Soil by Gabe Brown. The book was duly sourced and packaged and the handover took place on the day of a shoot. The book was accompanied by an email from me, and my vague hope was that the third series of Clarkson’s farm would touch on Regenerative Agriculture. I have heard nothing to date. Recently Anna attended an event called FarmEd, which was aimed at the under thirties.

Not all attendees were young farmers and the blend of young people, 50% of whom were women, from other professions, made for an enjoyable and informative event. Talking of events don’t forget to book up for the BASE UK conference at Nottingham in February 2023, this will the tenth AGM and hopefully it will be a bit special.
Agroecology Conference Builds Sustainable Farming

On 8th November Hutchinsons is hosting its inaugural Agroecology conference, giving farmers the chance to discover how to make the most of regenerative farming practices to benefit the environment and the bottom line.

Agroecology: Making the Transition will address many of the core regenerative agriculture principles, which head of Agroecology, Ed Brown, believes form the basis of good agronomy in a rapidly changing industry. Rising costs, changes to farm support, and increasingly extreme weather events, have hastened the need to build more resilient production systems that harness natural processes and reduce the need for artificial inputs. “The days of ‘high input, high output at all costs’ agriculture are numbered. The focus is much more about taking an holistic approach to farming and agronomy.”Hutchinsons is helping farmers do this with the launch of its new Agroecology service, and November’s conference will be packed with practical advice about sustainable farming practices. “Whether you’re a farmer that has already moved to a more resilient farming model, or are just starting out, the conference should have something for everyone.”

Speakers include Knight Frank’s Tom Heathcote, who is passionate about regenerative farming, and has helped a number of businesses transition to more sustainable farming systems, making him ideally placed to offer advice on business structuring and finance. Soil health is widely recognised as a cornerstone of sustainable farming systems, so Hutchinsons’s Ian Robertson will explain the importance of understanding your soil before making any significant structural or operational changes. Internationally-renowned independent researcher and regen consultant, Joel Williams, will also be present to offer a technical insight into his latest research. Two farmer speakers, at different stages of their agroecology journeys, will be there too. Ben Taylor-Davies, aka “regen Ben”, will share his experiences from years of adopting regenerative practices on the farm at Ross-on-Wye, while Harry Heath, who hosts the Helix Agroecology farm, will explain how he has tackled soil health issues on the Shropshire pig and arable farm.

“For us, we’ve gone through that early phase where we recognised our soils weren’t in the best of health, with significant slumping and erosion, ”says Mr Heath. “We were massively over-cultivating, and with subsoiling in particular, we found the more we did, the more we had to do, to artificially create structure. “But we are now well down the implementation phase, having converted “to direct drilling five years ago. ”Cover and catch crops, grazed off by sheep or pigs, are integral to the rotation, improving natural structure through a diversity of root structures, while also feeding soil biology. “Soil health and microbiology are always at the forefront of our decision making process,” Mr Heath adds. “The symbiosis that exists between the microbiology and the plant is vital and making sure we maximise that is integral to agroecology.

“But the key is to be openminded. To get off the conventional treadmill, you have to think differently, recognise it’s not all about the crop and continually question everything you do.”
New developments in robotisation

HORSCH has been pursuing topics like automation and robotisation for quite some time. Michael Horsch tells us how the idea for the Gantry was born, how it develops further and where the journey will lead to.

The idea of the Gantry is almost forty years old. Michael Horsch has been following the development already since the beginning of the 80s.

How did HORSCH come up with the idea of the Gantry?

We have been dealing with the aspects of automation and the construction of robots for farming for quite a long time. The trigger for the Gantry was a problem that mainly came from South America. For approx. five to six years, we have been selling our 18 metre Maestros over there, especially in Brazil, to large soya and maize farmers. These farms have understood how a reasonable cultivation strategy works on their sites, they seed directly and successfully manage catch crops. Thus, there are more humus and nutrients in the soil, and it can keep more water. Catch crops have become the key for progress in Brazil – especially the right catch crop mixtures, sown properly and at the right time. Thus, direct seeding works without tillage and loosening in the long term. Only on sandy soils do you have to loosen the soil additionally – a pass you can use in turn to place a fertiliser depot in deeper layers.

However, the problem of most of the farmers over there is that they do not get enough employees for the cultivation of their large fields. This is why they prefer to have one or two larger machines than several small ones.The requirement are machines with 24 m or even larger working widths. But from an engineering point of view there is a magical limit – 18 m. It still folds easily, the machine weight is relatively low and it is very stable. From 24 m, the machines become very heavy, and the weight is where you need it least – namely in the middle. To be able to cope with the powers during the folding process, this is where much stability and thus weight is required.

We focused on this problem and discussed what would make sense to prevent the machine from becoming too large and too heavy but still heavy enough for direct seeding and especially with a good distribution of the weight over the whole working width. This is why we came up with the idea of the Gantry. However, we did not invent it.

Where does the idea for the Gantry originally come from?

The idea for the Gantry already is about 40 years old. Since the beginning of the 80s, I have been following this development in England, e.g. at the National College of Agricultural Engineering inSilsoe. Today, besides us, some companies deal with this idea – with quite interesting applications – and also with the aspect of automation.

Many manufacturers, universities and start-ups often focus on small, all-electrically driven robots. They mainly think of a use in clusters. There already are companies that commercialise it. We took a look a Farmdroid and we noticed that the people working there are very pragmatic young people who have an agricultural background. They tackle the subject with a very practical approach what, in my opinion, makes the whole thing feasible rather quickly. If you try to work theoretically and to realise things on small test fields, you will proceed much slower.

To begin with, we focused on large working width, fully automated sowing processes etc.

Especially large 12 and 18 m seed drills which fold towards the front and have compact transport widths and large hoppers can be automated quite well. Of course, we have to continue to make tests and to develop ideas.

In past years during which we carried out test runs with the robots, one of our first findings was that there are only little possible savings with regard to staff. The tasks only change when you do no longer sit in the cabin, but you have to check that the machine does what it is supposed to do and you permanently optimise the adjustments for an optimum work result – and all this often by simply running after the machine.

What will it be like in the future?
We are proceeding quite fast, but there still is a lot of software work to do, e.g. with regard to track planning or surroundings detection. And there is a lot of know-how. But we are only proceeding this fast due to our test efforts in the field, especially on our own test farm AgroVation.

We already tackled the subject of Controlled Traffic Farming about twelve years ago. We wanted to see if you can get more efficiency out of the machines and if it has an effect on soils structure and thus on the yields if you make all passes on one fixed track and no longer drive over the rest. We learnt that this also was the first step towards robotics, that we have to plan the tracks and digitalise the fields.

From an agronomic point of view, however, Controlled Traffic did not achieve what we hoped for. At the harvest, it makes most sense to move the high loads on fixed tracks. Especially during the maize harvest, it often is wet and the wheat that is grown after the maize suffers. In this case, CTF is very advantageous. Now and then we noticed a few effects on heavy soils. If it was wet and in case of fixed tracks, there were small effects in the population development and in the yields in a one-digit percentile range.

What was also obvious: if tillage is exclusively been carried out with CTF, the soils inevitably become uneven. In Australia, where farmers have been working with direct seeding and CTF for years, the farmers made the same experiences. If you drive on the track in the same direction every year, the result are longitudinal and cross corrugations. And this affects tillage and sowing quality as well as the operational speed for example when spraying. We also partly noticed that it is quite difficult to follow the soil with a combine if there is lodged grain. And in addition: If you drive in a fixed track, the track – no matter where it is – becomes a “dirt track”. Everyone knows what becomes of a dirt track after several years. There are potholes, it is uneven and especially if it is wet, it is very difficult to drive on.

HORSCH, too, focuses on the concept of the Gantry and develops it further within the scope of automation and robotisation.

What does the HORSCH Gantry solution look like? How did it develop further?
Our motivation was: We do not want to build another heavy machine that compacts the soil. We choose the Gantry way – with two wheels at the front, two at the rear and the frame is positioned between the wheels. In our case, the front axle is wider – it is based on a 12 m track. The rear axle is based on a 4 m track. The reason is that in this case it isn’t one single track that is always driven over twice. For if it is wet and you drive over the same track twice, even between the rows, you might cause quite a mess resulting in intense compactions.

Last year around Christmas during Covid my brother and I again discussed this subject and suddenly we had the idea not to build a 24 m maize seed drill which with too small wheels and too much weight in the middle section would only be a bad compromise but to design the machine as a robot. This is how the Gantry idea was born – in a slightly modified form with the frame in the middle etc. At the beginning of January, we brought one of our engineers into the project to complete the design and to build the machine.

What is the current state of affairs? Are there still any problems?
We are currently in the test stage. At the end of May, the Gantry was sent to Brazil to carry out tests on large fields. In Germany, the options for these tests are few – the Gantry is too wide and has no homologation for road service. What we are still working on is the software issue. It is quite easy to solve from a technical point of view. As always, the main work is carried out by the software. But there still is a long way to go until the sensor system makes the machine react fast enough, until everything does what it is supposed to do.

What is again and again proven during the field tests is that you can achieve a significantly higher efficiency and work quality if you do without a cabin. The cabin sometimes is diverted from its intended use to take a little rest.

But the advantage also is that you gain a lot of installation space. Accessibility is improved considerably. You can access everything – even from below. The design of the frame, especially of the main frame, is simple, elegant and first and foremost particularly stable. This way, you can also build wider machines. With our concept, we could go to 30 or even 36 m. Due to the large hoppers, we generate a wider coverage, and we can place them where most of the weight is required.

Of course, you will eventually reach a limit of what four wheels can carry. 40 to 50 t on the wheels will be critical, especially with regard to the turning process if the seed frame is lifted or in wet conditions. The whole machine almost weighs 30 t, plus 10 to 15 t of seed – the weight quickly adds up. But still the concept is more manageable than a design with separate parts. When sowing directly, the weight has to be distributed evenly to where the row bodies are positioned, even right outside. The wider the machine is, the more difficult it is to put this into practice.

Which sectors can be automated with such ideas?
With regard to automation, in my opinion it is important to tackle the topics that can most easily be put into practice, that have to do with sowing, plant protection, fertilisation and mechanical weed control. Tillage does not have top priority. It is not so complicated and is more or less carried out alongside. To automate harvest processes, however, is extremely complicated. We are far from having a harvest machine drive on the field without a driver – no matter if it is a combine, a potato or a sugar beet harvester. In this sector, there are way too many influencing factors. Everyone who has ever threshed for example lodged grain with a combine knows what a challenge it is.
Farmbench Results: Past, Present And Future

Mark Topliff, AHDB Lead Analyst – Farm Economics, uses Farmbench data to illustrate how crops performed in 2021, and provide costings estimates for 2022 and a forecast for 2023.

The analysis

Conventional combinable crop enterprise performance results(11,584) were analysed in Farmbench (ahdb.org.uk/Farmbench)for the 2017 to 2021 harvest years. Results are presented across three performance groups: top25%, middle 50% and bottom 25% – based on full economic net margin.

Yields

Across the crops, there was significant yield variation in the enterprises and over the years – in response to weather and disease pressures. However, 2021 yields were close to the previous four-year averages. The top 25% consistently averaged higher yields (Table 1).

Prices and income

There has been an upward trend in reported prices received for most crops since the 2019 harvest year (Figure 1).Income data reveals the combined impact of yields and prices, with data (2017–21) shown for winter wheat, spring barley and winter oilseed rape (Figure 2).

For the top 25% performers, income increased by around£500 to £800 per hectare (crop dependent), largely due to higher prices. Conversely, income changes in the bottom 25% were much smaller, by around -£40 to £340, due to relatively low yields and higher costs. Although a relatively small proportion of the cereal crop income, the top 25% typically received double the income from straw than the bottom 25%.Five-year average spring and winter barley straw sales were 8% to 9% of the crop income in the top quartile. But, half this proportion in the bottom 25%.

Variable costs

Variable costs include seeds, fertiliser, crop protection, agronomy services and sundry variable items .On average, the lowest variable costs (2017–21) were associated with beans, linseed and oats. The highest were associated with winter barley, oilseed rape and wheat. Variable costs are estimated to increase in 2022 and again in 2023 (Table 2).Even if a modest reduction (10%) in usage is assumed, fertiliser costs could still be more than three and half times higher in 2023 than in 2021. This could double the variable costs in heavy-input crops.

Gross margins

Winter wheat always produced the highest gross margin(2017–21), followed by winter oilseed rape or winter oats(Figure 3).The middle-performing group’s gross margins were usually 40% lower than the top performers. The bottom quartile had around 45% lower gross margins compared to the middle group

Overheads

Total overheads include a value for unpaid labour, the rental value of owned land, depreciation, and finance charges. Wheat and winter oats had the highest total per-hectare overheads, with a 2% increase over the five years. Most crops saw an 11% to 15% rise over the period. Generally, overheads account for two-thirds of the total cost of production. They are key drivers of profitability, alongside yields. When total overheads are calculated as a percentage of total income (a function of yield), there is a strong association with net margin (Figure 4).As overheads as a percentage of income reduce, net margin increases. For most crops, the top 25% group has total overheads that are less than 60% of the crop income – for wheat, barley, and oilseed rape this falls to under 40%.

Energy and machinery costs have been the key influences.

Net margins

In all performance groups, winter wheat, oilseed rape and oats returned the best average net margins (2017–21).In line with crop income trends, full economic net margins also improved in 2021. Unsurprisingly, the top 25% had the greatest increases. For example, a rise of nearly £300/ha with winter wheat. In 2021, all crops for the top quartile and most crops for the middle 50% returned a positive net margin. Apart from winter wheat, no positive net margins were observed in the bottom 25%. In fact, the five-year average showed no positive net margins for that group (Figure 6).

When yield is considered, the order changes slightly. In the top quartile, oilseed rape has the highest net margin(Table 5). On average, linseed delivered the worst results for each performance group. Except for barley, winter crops outperformed their spring equivalents – by £4–£15/tonne in the top quartile, and£1–£38/tonne in the middle 50%.

High cost impact

Table 6 shows an analysis of the middle 50% group to indicate the potential margin impact of higher costs on wheat, barley and oilseed rape. It uses forward crop prices and average yields to estimate income in these crops, with2022 and 2023 cost of production estimates deducted. For winter wheat, margins could increase around 66%in 2022, if forward prices are realised. Spring barley is not expected to have such a big increase and oilseed rape is estimated to be lower than in 2021, due to higher costs. However, based on current futures prices, the impact of the higher costs will bring all margins down dramatically in2023. Possibly into negative territory for spring barley and oilseed rape.

Conclusion

Until recently, the general upward price trend has largely kept ahead of gradual cost rises. Now inflationary pressures on farm-input costs will impact heavily on net margins in2023.Holding on to 2022 profits will prove difficult, with generally higher working capital required to purchase inputs for harvest 2023 crops and, in England, there duction in Basic Payments. Grain prices are likely to stay volatile into the 2022/23marketing year, with marketing strategies having an even greater influence on margins in 2022 and 2023.Options to optimise income and mitigate cost increases can be explored in Farmbench – from crop rotation changes, to locking into futures prices, to evaluating potential inputs and equipment investments. If not already considered, environmental schemes should also be investigated on whether they can fit into the farming system and provide a useful steady income.

Notes

1 Based on year-on-year change in Defra Agricultural Price Index average of15%.

2 Based on forecast aginflation average of 32% and assumed reduced usage of inorganic fertiliser.

3 Futures prices as at 19/8/22. Deductions accounted for in total costs

4 Including straw income for wheat and barley

2022 estimates based on changes in Defra agricultural price indices applied to the 2021 results. Some reduction in fertiliser usage is assumed.

2023 forecast figures based on a full crop year at current inputs inflation rates. Some reduction in fertiliser usage is assumed. Net margin is crop income minus all costs, which includes all non-cash costs to the business – depreciation (machinery and buildings), unpaid labour and the rental value of owned land. Subsidies are excluded. Full economic costs include a value for unpaid labour, the rental value of owned land, depreciation and finance charges.

All tables are ranked by five-year average data.
Farmer Focus – Ed Reynolds

October 2022

Harvest 2022 arrived fast and was completed without a pause. The wheats yielded 8.8t/ha, with only applied 155kg/ha bagged N applied, which was 16% less than 14yr average. 85% of this was direct drilled and we are seeing soil structure continue to improve. The oilseed rape yielded 3.3t/ha, with the highest yielding field consisting of a 3-way companion crop until January. The gross margin of this crop is hard to match with other break crops, so we have opted to roll the dice again and plant more for 2023. As I write on 20^th September, the rapeseed with companion crop is experiencing much less CSFB attack, perhaps showing a benefit of diversity in a cash crop system.

This summer will be remembered on our farm for being hot and dry. We were fortunate to receive 24mm of rain on 25^th August, after a period of nearly 10 weeks without rain. The dry weather threw a spanner in the works for cover crop / catch crop establishment. Indeed, we only drilled half the catch crops we intended. Because our system is linear: annual cash crop followed by cover crop sequentially, once harvest was complete, the soils were without a living root, bare and exposed to the sun. These were ‘baked out’ causing harm to the soil life that we are trying to encourage. This made me aware of the flaws in our system, where we need to look at overlapping plant cover and more living mulches.

Soil Testing

As a result of so much recent conversation around carbon in agricultural soils, with the backdrop of climate change and the opportunity to enter carbon certificate programs, we wanted to start testing our soil (Farmer Focus article – Apr 2022). The results of our original tests were quite shocking. Soil scientists look at Soil Organic Carbon (SOC) as a proportion of total clay content in the soil, so the higher the clay content, potentially the higher capacity to store stable carbon. One group of studies suggests a very good ratio for arable soil might be 1:8 carbon to clay, where as a degraded soil is 1:13 (Prout et al, 2020). The results from our first 24ha field showed a 1:16 SOC:clay content – in other words highly degraded.

This leads to the question of how it degraded to this point? To our best knowledge, this high clay content field has been in arable production since 1940’s, when American crawler tractors began to be imported as part of the increase in domestic production during WWII. It would probably have had animal manure rotationally applied until 1960’s, when livestock left this farm. Since then, it has been in arable production, using intensive cultivation and artificial fertiliser. You can see a lighter soil colour on the sloping parts of the field in the recent satellite imagery, indicating lower organic matter and implying soil erosion. I agree it is an assumption, but a safe one to say that the SOC level pre-1940 would have been significantly higher.

Given the soil test information, this leads to a bigger question – is my job as a farmer to grow crops safely and profitably for the world market, or is there a moral imperative to stop degradation of my soil, and even try to improve it? To quote from the summary of the periodical article: ‘Many arable soils in England and Wales evidently have a substantial SOC deficit, suggesting a significant opportunity to increase SOC storage to both improve soil conditions and sequester carbon’ (Prout et al, 2020). Interestingly, the field we tested is not one of our ‘worst’. It has been in no-till / very shallow till for 5 years and is functioning well under this new regime. We hope to use this and other regenerative practices to try and improve its carbon content – no danger of reaching carbon saturation point anytime soon. We have logged the sampling points and will revisit them in 10 years time.
Green Cover: Soil Health Resource Guide – 8TH Edition

The Purpose of This Guide

At Green Cover, our mission is to help people regenerate God’s creation for future generations. As producers who make our living from the abundant resources with which God has blessed us, we should be the most adamant and passionate conservationists. Not only do our current and future livelihoods depend on healthy functioning soils and ecosystems, but God has charged us with caring for His creation. Adam, the first farmer, was directed by his Creator to care for and protect the soil. At Green Cover, we believe that we still have this responsibility, and we are called to take the additional step of rebuilding and regenerating our soils.

We are committed to educating people about soil health and providing them with as many tools and resources as we can. This Soil Health Resource Guide is dedicated to that end. We recognize our own limited knowledge and experience, so we have invited some of the best minds in the regenerative agriculture movement to share their valuable expertise and insight for the benefit of all. To some, this guide may be a reinforcement for what they already know; to others, it may be the first step in their journey towards healthier soils. This is by no means an exhaustive soil health resource; rather, it is intended to be a concise summary of soil health concepts, and a gateway to further learning.

Think of this guide as seeds that can sprout and grow into deeper understanding if you will but plant them. We strive to have significant new content every year. While that is a good thing, it also means that many excellent articles from previous editions, some of which are catalogued at right, are not printed in this eighth edition.

Fortunately, we have allof them available on ourwebsite. We encourageyou to diversify youreducation and read thesearticles also. Let the learning continue by going to: www.greencoverseed.com/SHRG/

We invite you to do your due diligence and further explore any or all of the topics that we will touch on in this resource guide or on our website. We welcome your comments and feedback on this guide, and we are happy to provide additional copies upon request.

Keith and Brian Berns, Green Cover founders
What to Read – October 2022

What do you read?

If you are like us, then you don’t know where to start when it comes to other reading apart from farming magazines. However, there is so much information out there that can help us understand our businesses, farm better and understand the position of non-farmers.

We have listed a few more books you might find interesting, challenge the way you currently think and help you farm better.

The Fate of Food: What We’ll Eat in a Bigger, Hotter, Smarter World

We need to produce more food. With water and food shortages already being felt in some parts of the world, this might sound like an insurmountable challenge, but all is far from lost. You may not have heard about it, but the sustainable food revolution is already under way.

Amanda Little unveils startling innovations from the front lines around the world: farmscrapers, cloned cattle, meatless burgers, edible insects, super-bananas and microchipped cows. She meets the most creative and controversial minds changing the face of modern food production, and tackles fears over genetic modification with hard facts. The Fate of Food is a fascinating look at the threats and opportunities that lie ahead as we struggle to feed ever more people in a changing world.

Letters to a Young Farmer: On Food, Farming, and Our Future

An agricultural revolution is sweeping the land. Appreciation for high-quality food, often locally grown, an awareness of the fragility of our farmlands, and a new generation of young people interested in farming, animals, and respect for the earth have come together to create a new agrarian community. To this group of farmers, chefs, activists, and visionaries, Letters to a Young Farmer is addressed. Three dozen esteemed leaders of the changes that made this revolution possible speak to the highs and lows of farming life in vivid and personal letters specially written for this collaboration.

Barbara Kingsolver speaks to the tribe of farmers—some born to it, many self-selected—with love, admiration, and regret. Dan Barber traces the rediscovery of lost grains and foodways. Michael Pollan bridges the chasm between agriculture and nature. Bill McKibben connects the early human quest for beer to the modern challenge of farming in a rapidly changing climate.

Letters to a Young Farmer is a vital road map of how we eat and farm, and why now, more than ever before, we need farmers.

Dirt to Soil: One Family’s Journey into Regenerative Agriculture

Gabe Brown didn’t set out to change the world when he first started working alongside his father-in-law on the family farm in North Dakota. But as a series of weather-related crop disasters put Brown and his wife, Shelly, in desperate financial straits, they started making bold changes to their farm. Brown—in an effort to simply survive—began experimenting with new practices he’d learned about from reading and talking with innovative researchers and ranchers. As he and his family struggled to keep the farm viable, they found themselves on an amazing journey into a new type of farming: regenerative agriculture.

Brown dropped the use of most of the herbicides, insecticides, and synthetic fertilizers that are a standard part of conventional agriculture. He switched to no-till planting, started planting diverse cover crops mixes, and changed his grazing practices. In so doing Brown transformed a degraded farm ecosystem into one full of life—starting with the soil and working his way up, one plant and one animal at a time.

In Dirt to Soil Gabe Brown tells the story of that amazing journey and offers a wealth of innovative solutions to our most pressing and complex contemporary agricultural challenge—restoring the soil. The Brown’s Ranch model, developed over twenty years of experimentation and refinement, focuses on regenerating resources by continuously enhancing the living biology in the soil. Using regenerative agricultural principles, Brown’s Ranch has grown several inches of new topsoil in only twenty years! The 5,000-acre ranch profitably produces a wide variety of cash crops and cover crops as well as grass-finished beef and lamb, pastured laying hens, broilers, and pastured pork, all marketed directly to consumers.

The key is how we think, Brown says. In the industrial agricultural model, all thoughts are focused on killing things. But that mindset was also killing diversity, soil, and profit, Brown realized. Now he channels his creative thinking toward how he can get more life on the land—more plants, animals, and beneficial insects. “The greatest roadblock to solving a problem,” Brown says, “is the human mind.”

The Soil Will Save Us: How Scientists, Farmers, and Foodies Are Healing the Soil to Save the Planet

Journalist and bestselling author Kristin Ohlson makes an elegantly argued, passionate case for “our great green hope”—a way in which we can not only heal the land but also turn atmospheric carbon into beneficial soil carbon—and potentially reverse global warming.

Thousands of years of poor farming and ranching practices—and, especially, modern industrial agriculture—have led to the loss of up to 80 percent of carbon from the world’s soils. That carbon is now floating in the atmosphere, and even if we stopped using fossil fuels today, it would continue warming the planet.

As the granddaughter of farmers and the daughter of avid gardeners, Ohlson has long had an appreciation for the soil. A chance conversation with a local chef led her to the crossroads of science, farming, food, and environmentalism and the discovery of the only significant way to remove carbon dioxide from the air—an ecological approach that tends not only to plants and animals but also to the vast population of underground microorganisms that fix carbon in the soil. Ohlson introduces the visionaries—scientists, farmers, ranchers, and landscapers—who are figuring out in the lab and on the ground how to build healthy soil, which solves myriad problems: drought, erosion, air and water pollution, and food quality, as well as climate change. Her discoveries and vivid storytelling will revolutionize the way we think about our food, our landscapes, our plants, and our relationship to Earth.

Holy Shit: Managing Manure to Save Mankind

In his insightful new book, Holy Shit: Managing Manure to Save Mankind, contrary farmer Gene Logsdon provides the inside story of manure-our greatest, yet most misunderstood, natural resource. He begins by lamenting a modern society that not only throws away both animal and human manure-worth billions of dollars in fertilizer value-but that spends a staggering amount of money to do so. This wastefulness makes even less sense as the supply of mined or chemically synthesized fertilizers dwindles and their cost skyrockets. In fact, he argues, if we do not learn how to turn our manures into fertilizer to keep food production in line with increasing population, our civilization, like so many that went before it, will inevitably decline. With his trademark humor, his years of experience writing about both farming and waste management, and his uncanny eye for the small but important details, Logsdon artfully describes how to manage farm manure, pet manure and human manure to make fertilizer and humus. He covers the field, so to speak, discussing topics like: How to select the right pitchfork for the job and use it correctly How to operate a small manure spreader How to build a barn manure pack with farm animal manure How to compost cat and dog waste How to recycle toilet water for irrigation purposes, and How to get rid ourselves of our irrational paranoia about feces and urine. Gene Logsdon does not mince words. This fresh, fascinating and entertaining look at an earthy, but absolutely crucial subject, is a small gem and is destined to become a classic of our agricultural literature.

The Carbon Farming Solution

Agriculture is currently a major net producer of greenhouse gases, with little prospect of improvement unless things change markedly. In The Carbon Farming Solution, Eric Toensmeier puts carbon sequestration at the forefront and shows how agriculture can be a net absorber of carbon. Improved forms of annual-based agriculture can help to a degree; however to maximize carbon sequestration, it is perennial crops we must look at, whether it be perennial grains, other perennial staples, or agroforestry systems incorporating trees and other crops. In this impressive book, backed up with numerous tables and references, the author has assembled a toolkit that will be of great use to anybody involved in agriculture whether in the tropics or colder northern regions. For me the highlights are the chapters covering perennial crop species organized by use staple crops, protein crops, oil crops, industrial crops, etc. with some seven hundred species described. There are crops here for all climate types, with good information on cultivation and yields, so that wherever you are, you will be able to find suitable recommended perennial crops. This is an excellent book that gives great hope without being naïve and makes a clear reasoned argument for a more perennial-based agriculture to both feed people and take carbon out of the air. Martin Crawford, director, The Agroforestry Research Trust; author of Creating a Forest Garden and Trees for Gardens, Orchards, and Permaculture

Mycorrhizal Planet: How Symbiotic Fungi Work with Roots to Support Plant Health and Build Soil

Mycorrhizal fungi have been waiting a long time for people to recognize just how important they are to the making of dynamic soils. These microscopic organisms partner with the root systems of approximately 95 percent of the plants on Earth, and they sequester carbon in much more meaningful ways than human “carbon offsets” will ever achieve. Pick up a handful of old-growth forest soil and you are holding 26 miles of threadlike fungal mycelia, if it could be stretched it out in a straight line. Most of these soil fungi are mycorrhizal, supporting plant health in elegant and sophisticated ways. The boost to green immune function in plants and community-wide networking turns out to be the true basis of ecosystem resiliency. A profound intelligence exists in the underground nutrient exchange between fungi and plant roots, which in turn determines the nutrient density of the foods we grow and eat.

Exploring the science of symbiotic fungi in layman’s terms, holistic farmer Michael Phillips (author of The Holistic Orchard and The Apple Grower) sets the stage for practical applications across the landscape. The real impetus behind no-till farming, gardening with mulches, cover cropping, digging with broadforks, shallow cultivation, forest-edge orcharding, and everything related to permaculture is to help the plants and fungi to prosper . . . which means we prosper as well.

Building soil structure and fertility that lasts for ages results only once we comprehend the nondisturbance principle. As the author says, “What a grower understands, a grower will do.” Mycorrhizal Planet abounds with insights into “fungal consciousness” and offers practical, regenerative techniques that are pertinent to gardeners, landscapers, orchardists, foresters, and farmers. Michael’s fungal acumen will resonate with everyone who is fascinated with the unseen workings of nature and concerned about maintaining and restoring the health of our soils, our climate, and the quality of life on Earth for generations to come.
New Professional Register For Environmental Advisers

Managing the farmed landscape to both produce food and deliver for the environment is becoming increasingly important – from a legislation point of view, in terms of meeting government targets for biodiversity, water quality, woodland planting and net zero; from a business point of view with being able to ensure maximum environmental potential from the farm; but also for you and the local community with the joy of seeing a new species flourishing, organic matter levels increasing and your margins buzzing with pollinators.

Every farmer and land manager has a huge amount of knowledge to draw from, in order to manage and enhance the farmed landscape and achieve their own, local and national ambitions. However, do you also work with advisers to learn more, to use their expertise and experience to put together options or manage habitats and to enjoy sharing in the successes from the introduction of new practices?

Working with advisers who have technical environmental knowledge and understanding, along with an appreciation of farm business economics and how to effectively manage integration of practices with production is becoming increasingly integral across the UK. For this reason, BASIS have worked with stakeholders and organisations from across the sector to develop anew Environmental Advisers Register. This Register provides professional recognition of the role these advisers play, in working with farm businesses to achieve environmental outcomes.

The Register has been designed for the breadth of individuals delivering environmental advice with a farm business – from biodiversity, air, climate, energy and productivity knowledge, to effective management of plant health, livestock, nutrients, soil, water, woodland and the historic environment.

Advisers joining the Register will need to demonstrate their knowledge and understanding of environmental land management by either completing a qualification to entry, currently the BETA Conservation Management course, or by applying for acquired rights, based on the significant experience they have gained whilst working in the industry. In addition, there will be the requirement to combine this with ongoing continuous professional development each year, which ensures all members of the Register have the up-to-date knowledge and skills to deliver advice which meets the needs of farmers and land managers.

Members of the Register will also be able to appear in a public, online directory, which farmers, land managers and advisers can use to find expertise on a particular subject in their local area – perhaps to put together a new agri-environment scheme application, carry out a surveyor create a new management plan. The aspiration of this Register is that it will create an industry standard for integrated advice delivery, raise standards across the industry and support farmers and land managers to enable sustainable productive and profitable, farming businesses, whilst delivering against national environmental ambitions.

For more information, please visit: www.basis-reg.co.uk/environmental-advisers.
Farmer Focus – Ed Reynolds

Harvest 2022 arrived fast and was completed without a pause. The wheats yielded 8.8t/ha, with only applied155kg/ha bagged N applied, which was 16% less than 14yraverage. 85% of this was direct drilled and we are seeing soil structure continue to improve. The oilseed rape yielded3.3t/ha, with the highest yielding field consisting of a 3-waycompanion crop until January. The gross margin of this crop is hard to match with other break crops, so we have opted to roll the dice again and plant more for 2023. As I write on 20th September, the rapeseed with companion crop is experiencing much less CSFB attack, perhaps showing a benefit of diversity in a cash crop system.

This summer will be remembered on our farm for being hot and dry. We were fortunate to receive 24mm of rain on 25thAugust, after a period of nearly 10 weeks without rain. The dry weather threw a spanner in the works for cover crop /catch crop establishment. Indeed, we only drilled half the catch crops we intended. Because our system is linear: annual cash crop followed by cover crop sequentially, once harvest was complete, the soils were without a living root, bare and exposed to the sun. These were ‘baked out’ causing harm to the soil life that we are trying to encourage. This made me aware of the flaws in our system, where we need to look at overlapping plant cover and more living mulches.

Soil Testing As a result of so much recent conversation around carbon in agricultural soils, with the backdrop of climate change and the opportunity to enter carbon certificate programs, we wanted to start testing our soil (Farmer Focus article – Apr 2022). The results of our original tests were quite shocking. Soil scientists look at Soil Organic Carbon (SOC) as a proportion of total clay content in the soil, so the higher the clay content, potentially the higher capacity to store stable carbon. One group of studies suggests a very good ratio for arable soil might be 1:8carbon to clay, where as a degraded soil is 1:13 (Prout et al,2020). The results from our first 24ha field showed a 1:16SOC:clay content – in other words highly degraded.

This leads to the question of how it degraded to this point? To our best knowledge, this high clay content field has been in arable production since 1940’s, when American crawler tractors began to be imported as part of the increase in domestic production during WWII. It would probably have had animal manure rotationally applied until 1960’s, when livestock left this farm. Since then, it has been in arable production, using intensive cultivation and artificial fertiliser. You can see a lighter soil colour on the sloping parts of the field in the recent satellite imagery, indicating lower organic matter and implying soil erosion. I agree it is an assumption, but a safe one to say that the SOC level pre-1940 would have been significantly higher.

Given the soil test information, this leads to a bigger question- is my job as a farmer to grow crops safely and profitably for the world market, or is there a moral imperative to stop degradation of my soil, and even try to improve it? To quote from the summary of the periodical article: ‘Many arable soils in England and Wales evidently have a substantial SOC deficit, suggesting a significant opportunity to increase SOC storage to both improve soil conditions and sequester carbon’ (Proutet al, 2020). Interestingly, the field we tested is not one of our ‘worst’. It has been in no-till / very shallow till for 5 years and is functioning well under this new regime. We hope to use this and other regenerative practices to try and improve its carbon content – no danger of reaching carbon saturation point anytime soon. We have logged the sampling points and will revisit them in 10 years time.

Could you explain this in more detail?

Theodor Leeb: On the high-yield sites stubble cultivation is usually carried out after the harvest to mix in the straw. After a few days or weeks volunteer crops and weeds emerge. I.e. the field more or less is green all-over. Spotting does not make sense as the plants are too close to each other. So you would have to treat the whole area and could not rely on point application. In dry regions where no-till farming is very common this is different. There is no tillage after the harvest. As it is very dry there are little weeds or catch crops. And in this case, you can – instead of spraying all over – work with a camera system in a targeted way for example to save costs when using glyphosate for spraying the individual plants.
Nitrogen Stabilisers(Part 1): Inhibitors

Joel Williams, Integrated Soils

Reductions in nitrogen fertiliser use and associated greenhouse gas (GHG)emissions is of course high on the agenda in recent times – you’d have to be living under a rock to have missed this memo! In many countries around the world, we are seeing legislation from governments striving to limit the release of GHGs in order to meet emissions and sustainability targets. The use of low efficiency nitrogen fertilisers is of course one of the major sources, contributing both ammonia (NH3+) and nitrous oxide (N2O). Production systems that are dependent on external N inputs are highly vulnerable to the impacts of this impetus and farmers who have been experimenting and trialling lower N strategies will be well poised to weather the upcoming changes.

There is no silver bullet to addressing the nitrogen dilemma, a multi-pronged approach that integrates many tools into the toolbox is required. One such strategy involves the use of stabilised nitrogen fertilisers – often called enhanced efficiency fertilisers – which make use of chemical inhibitors to slow N transformations in the soil and prevent losses. Urease inhibitors (UI) slow ammonia production while nitrification inhibitors (NI) slow nitrate formation(which can ultimately be converted to N2O during anaerobic conditions).These inhibitors are very targeted and they have been proven highly effective in reducing production of these twoGHGs1. However, there has been some concern raised about their potential side effects on soil biology – this is something I have been asked numerous times over the years. There are two recent studies that have investigated this question and I thought it was worth sharing their findings. The bottom line was that both studies found no effect of UI and only a mild and temporary effect of NI but let’s expand with a touch more detail…

Firstly, a short-term study2 in Canada applied urea-ammonium nitrate (UAN)with and without both urease and nitrification inhibitors and followed up monitoring the effects on the soil microbiome for 16 days. The addition of the inhibitors to UAN had only minor effects on the abundance or activity of target and non-target N-cycling microbial groups which was temporarily observed around day 9 after fertiliser application, but no longer evident by the end of the study period. Along with these minor and transient impacts, a significant ~68% reduction in N2Oemissions was achieved2.Secondly, a more recent and longer term paper3 from Ireland studied the effects of UI and NI on soil microbial communities and biological function in a grassland soil over a 5 year period.

After5 years of repeated applications, there was no impact of either inhibitor on non-target microbes while function and abundance of N cycling communities were for the most part, unaffected by fertilisation or the use of inhibitors; although, the NI did reduce the abundance of a bacteria which produceN2O. Although the inhibitors had a fairly negligible effect, this study found the fertiliser itself did have an impact on the fungal community structure but no impact on bacterial communitystructure3.

So it appears nitrogen inhibitors are not only effective at stabilising nitrogen inputs in the soil, they also have a minor effect on the soil microbiome, making them a potential valuable tool as part of an integrated nitrogen management approach. That said however, there are some reports of urease inhibitor shaving negative effects on plant growth by entering the plant and supressing the urease enzyme internally. From a plant nutrition perspective, the ureas enzyme catalyses the breakdown of urea, liberating the embedded N to be utilised by the plant to ultimately synthesise amino acids and proteins. Consequently, using a UI which can block the activity of this key enzyme internally can lead to a build up of urea and additionally prevent adequate protein synthesis (of course important for plant health and quality).

A study from as early as 1989 highlighted that plant uptake of UI increased both leaf-tip necrosis and urea concentrations to toxic levels in both wheat and sorghum4. Another study with maize demonstrated that UI can heavily interfere with urea nutrition, limiting uptake as well as the following assimilation pathway5. Lastly, a very recent study from earlier this year applied foliar urea with a UI onto pineapples– a reduction in urease activity was observed which corresponded in high levels of urea and diminished levels of ammonium, amino acids and protein in the pineapple leaves6. Combined, these studies all indicate that UI are taken up by plants, can influence N uptake and disrupt N metabolism and hence protein synthesis. That said, keep in mind that plants do make use of a range of N sources beyond just urea so utilisation of ammonium, nitrate, amino acids, proteins and bacterial endophytes can still function and support plant growth; however, the broader goal of optimising plant growth and production should aim to support all sources and pathways of N nutrition.

In part 2 of this article, we will explore the potential of some of the alternatives to chemical inhibitors, namely C-based inputs.

References:

1. Urease and Nitrification Inhibitors—As Mitigation Tools for Greenhouse Gas Emissions in Sustainable Dairy Systems: A Review. (2020). doi.org/10.3390/SU12156018

2. Short-term response of soil N-cycling genes and transcripts to fertilization with nitrification and urease inhibitors, and relationship with field-scale N2O emissions. (2020). doi.org/10.1016/J.SOILBIO.2019.107703

3. Assessing the long-term impact of urease and nitrification inhibitor use on microbial community composition, diversity and function in grassland soil. (2022). doi.org/10.1016/J.SOILBIO.2022.108709

4. Potential phytotoxicity associated with the use of soil urease inhibitors. (1989). doi.org/10.1073/PNAS.86.4.1110

5. The urease inhibitor NBPT negatively affects DUR3-mediated uptake and assimilation of urea in maize roots.(2015). doi.org/10.1073/pnas.8

6.4.11106. Transient application of foliar urea with N-(n-Butyl) thiophosphoric triamide on N metabolism of pineapple under controlled condition. (2022). doi.org/10.1016/J.SCIENTA.2021.110822
What Do You Read?

If you are like us, then you don’t know where to start when it comes to other reading apart from farming magazines. However, there is so much information out there that can help us understand our businesses, farm better and understand the position of non-farmers.

We have listed a few more books you might find interesting, challenge the way you currently think and help you farm better.

The Fate of Food: What We’ll Eat in a Bigger, Hotter, Smarter World

We need to produce more food. With water and food shortages already being felt in some parts of the world, this might sound like an insurmountable challenge, but all is far from lost. You may not have heard about it, but the sustainable food revolution is already under way. Amanda Little unveils startling innovations from the front lines around the world: farmscrapers, cloned cattle, meatless burgers, edible insects, super bananas and microchipped cows. She meets the most creative and controversial minds changing the face of modern food production, and tackles fears over genetic modification with hard facts. The Fate of Food is a fascinating look at the threats and opportunities that lie ahead as we struggle to feed evermore people in a changing world.

Letters to a Young Farmer: On Food, Farming, and Our Future

An agricultural revolution is sweeping the land. Appreciation for high-quality food, often locally grown, an awareness of the fragility of our farmlands, and a new generation of young people interested in farming, animals, and respect for the earth have come together to create a new agrarian community. To this group of farmers, chefs, activists, and visionaries, Letters to a Young Farmer is addressed. Three dozen esteemed leaders of the changes that made this revolution possible speak to the highs and lows of farming life in vivid and personal letters specially written for this collaboration. Barbara Kingsolver speaks to the tribe of farmers—some born to it, many self-selected—with love, admiration, and regret. Dan Barber traces the rediscovery of lost grains and food ways. Michael Pollan bridges the chasm between agriculture and nature. Bill McKibben connects the early human quest for beer to the modern challenge of farming in a rapidly changing climate. We have listed a few more books you might find interesting, challenge the way you currently think and help you farm better.

Dirt to Soil: One Family’s Journey into Regenerative Agriculture

Gabe Brown didn’t set out to change the world when he first started working alongside his father-in-law on the family farm in North Dakota. But as a series of weather-related crop disasters put Brown and his wife, Shelly, in desperate financial straits, they started making bold changes to their farm. Brown—in an effort to simply survive—began experimenting with new practices he’d learned about from reading and talking with innovative researchers and ranchers. As he and his family struggled to keep the farm viable, they found themselves on an amazing journey into a new type of farming: regenerative agriculture.

Brown dropped the use of most of the herbicides, insecticides, and synthetic fertilizers that are a standard part of conventional agriculture. He switched to no-till planting, started planting diverse cover crops mixes, and changed his grazing practices. In so doing Brown transformed a degraded farm ecosystem into one full of life—starting with the soil and working his way up, one plant and one animal at a time. In Dirt to Soil Gabe Brown tells the story of that amazing journey and offers a wealth of innovative solutions to our most pressing and complex contemporary agricultural challenge—restoring the soil. The Brown’s Ranch model, developed over twenty years of experimentation and refinement, focuses on regenerating resources by continuously enhancing the living biology in the soil.

Using regenerative agricultural principles, Brown’s Ranch has grown several inches of new top soil in only twenty years! The 5,000-acreranch profitably produces a wide variety of cash crops and cover crops as well as grass-finished beef and lamb, pastured laying hens, broilers, and pastured pork, all marketed directly to consumers. The key is how we think, Brown says. In the industrial agricultural model, all thoughts are focused on killing things. But that mindset was also killing diversity, soil, and profit, Brown realized. Now he channels his creative thinking toward how he can get more life on the land—more plants, animals, and beneficial insects. “The greatest roadblock to solving a problem,” Brown says, “is the human mind.”

The Soil Will Save Us: How Scientists, Farmers, and Foodies Are Healing the Soil to Save the Planet

Journalist and bestselling author Kristin Ohlson makes an elegantly argued, passionate case for “our great green hope”—a way in which we cannot only heal the land but also turn atmospheric carbon into beneficial soil carbon—and potentially reverse global warming. Thousands of years of poor farming and ranching practices—and, especially, modern industrial agriculture—have led to the loss of up to 80 percent of carbon from the world’s soils. That carbon is now floating in the atmosphere, and even if we stopped using fossil fuels today, it would continue warming the planet. As the granddaughter of farmers and the daughter of avid gardeners, Ohlson has long had an appreciation for the soil.

A chance conversation with a local chef led her to the crossroads of science, farming, food, and environmentalism and the discovery of the only significant way to remove carbon dioxide from the air—an ecological approach that tends not only to plants and animals but also to the vast population of underground microorganisms that fix carbon in the soil. Ohlson introduces the visionaries—scientists, farmers, ranchers, and landscapers—who are figuring out in the lab and on the ground how to build healthy soil, which solves myriad problems: drought, erosion, air and water pollution, and food quality, as well as climate change. Her discoveries and vivid storytelling will revolutionize the way we think about our food, our landscapes, our plants, and our relationship to Earth.

Holy Shit: Managing Manure to Save Mankind

In his insightful new book, Holy Shit: Managing Manure to Save Mankind, contrary farmer Gene Logsdon provides the inside story of manure – our greatest, yet most misunderstood, natural resource. He begins by lamenting a modern society that not only throws away both animal and human manure – worth billions of dollars in fertilizer value – but that spends a staggering amount of money to do so. This wastefulness make seven less sense as the supply of minedor chemically synthesized fertilizers dwindles and their cost skyrockets. In fact, he argues, if we do not learn how to turn our manures into fertilizer to keep food production in line within creasing population, our civilization, like so many that went before it, will inevitably decline. With his trade mark humour, his years of experience writing about both farming and waste management, and his uncanny eye for the small but important details, Logsdon artfully describes how to manage farm manure, pet manure and human manure to make fertiliser and humus. He covers the field, so to speak, discussing topics like: How to select the right pitch fork for the job and use it correctly How to operate a small manure spreader How to build a barn manure pack with farm animal manure How to compost cat and dog waste How to recycle toilet water for irrigation purposes, and How to get rid ourselves of our irrational paranoia about faeces and urine. Gene Logsdon does not mince words. This fresh, fascinating and entertaining look at an earthy, but absolutely crucial subject, is a small gem and is destined to become a classic of our agricultural literature.
Direct Driller Patrons

Thank you to those who has signed up to be a Direct Driller Patron after the last issue. Our farmer writers are now rewarded for sharing their hard-earned knowledge and our readers have the facility to place a value upon that. The Direct Driller Patron programme gives readers the opportunity to “pay it forward” and place a value on what they get from the magazine. But only once they feel they have learned something valuable.

We urge everyone reading to consider how much value you have gained from the information in the magazine. Has it saved you money? Inspired you to try something different? Entertained you? Helped you understand or solve a problem? If the answer is “Yes”, please become a patron so that we can attract more new readers to the magazine and they can in turn learn without any barriers to knowledge.

Simply scan the QR code to become a patron and support the continued growth and success of the magazine.
Pay it forward and pass on the ability to read the magazine to another farmer.

Clive and the rest of the Direct Driller team

Patrons
Introduction – Issue 18

There’s quiet confidence in farming at present, and it looks like there will be more money than normal available for investment. Andersons ‘Loam Farm’, their virtual 600ha of combinable crops, is forecast to have a business surplus of £840/ha (on an output value of £1966/ ha) this year compared with £573 in 2021 – but their forecast figure drops to just £161 in 2023. In addition there is money from the Farming Investment Fund – three farmers at Cereals told me they had secured funding – two for drills and one for a shallow cultivator. The question is whether to use the available cash and/or £25k grant to buy a better machine than you had budgeted for, or use the fund money to take the sting out of the purchase.

Pub talk suggests that, when it comes to equipment, the adage “you get what you pay for” applies to complexity rather than reliability, which is of-course the one thing which everyone needs. Not too many farmers calculate and add up the cost of breakdowns, and if they did I think there would be much greater emphasis on pre-season preparation. Doing the preparation job properly means replacing parts such as belts and bearings which are still performing as they should, as well as buying in spares of those liable to pack up. Spares are expensive and there’s a temptation to restrict the pre-season to a oil and filters, worn belts and rumbling bearings, and hope it holds together. Chats with dealers and farmers with the same machines can help list the ‘at-risk’ components.

This where forums such as thefarmingforum.co.uk can be so valuable. Not many farmers would go to the extreme of giving their worn out drill – a Vadersatad 30S – a complete dismantle, repair, paint and rebuild like Jamie Hawkins did last winter. I featured the job in Farm Ideas issue #120. The full refurb cost less than £10k and Jamies knows the 30S suits his existing tractor and field topography – being mounted it goes across slopes better than trailed drills. The record business surplus predicted comes at an uncertain time.

The Ukraine cereal prices are a market abberation (those millions in desperate need of food may describe it differently) which is likely to settle. Farmers across the globe have an amazing ability to respond to change, and in the fullness of time the situation will stabilise. Meanwhile good wishes and good health to all our readers.
The Problem with Vegans

Getting a confession out the way. About a third of my meals are 100% vegan. But in balance, an evening dinner rarely doesn’t contain meat. I like to think this is normal. Nutritionally balanced. A healthy diet, that supports a healthy farming ecosystem of arable and livestock. What’s not to like about that? Well, everything if you are vegan. My diet is completely unacceptable. I am uncaring, without empathy, blah, blah. This labelling tends to push me towards believing that outspoken vegans are nutters, who just like the sound of their own voices.

But this is really the problem with vegans: They only care about life above the ground.

Sheep matter, worms don’t. Cows matter, soil microbiology doesn’t. Pigs matter, organic matter doesn’t This being a solid health magazine first and foremost, you can see where I am going. Grazed land has some of the best soil microbiology. “The golden hoof” has been written about many times in these pages. Farmers look to bring in as much manure as possible, as with it comes the biology needed to grow healthy, nutritious and sustainable food. Livestock are an essential part. Yet vegans are usually oblivious to this argument. Because what goes on below ground doesn’t seem to matter to them.

Fields of soy / corn rotations are what’s needed to save the planet. Grown with lots of herbicides and synthetic fertiliser in soils that have lost all their fertility. That is how to get to net-zero. Despite the glaring issue of it not being sustainable or closed loop or near to net-zero. Soil isn’t sexy, it’s hidden away, out of sight. It’s hard to understand the massive impact of what below the ground can have in the world. But it is critical to the argument. Beans, rye, brassicas are all good to have in the rotation.

These crops grown on regenerative farms should be the staple purchases for the like of Huel (the vegan health food). But many vegan food companies seem have little interest in regen ag. Unfortunately, being vegan is enough for them. However, their products could be even kinder to the planet if products were sourced from regen farms. These companies should represent the main sales channels for regen farms – as their goals align with what we can deliver. However, that is not the case currently. But it should be our aim to supply them (at a premium).
Featured Farmer – Philip Rowbottom

Philip Rowbottom, is a 3rd generation farmer arable farmer from West Yorkshire.

Some of you may know him as @golfnshoot on Twitter, so it may not surprise you to learn he also owns Woolley Park Golf club and represents team GB in Clay shooting. Here he explains his transition over to Direct Drilling from a conventional plough-based system and how he’s already seeing the improvements across his farm.

“The farm covers around 500 acres just south of Wakefield. Today we farm 300 acres, with the golf course covering the remainder.

The diversification into the golf course was pivotal in how we farm today. Over breakfast one morning, way back in 1991, my father announced we should build a golf course. None of us played golf, or had any real interest in golf, but that’s what we did and that’s what we’ve done for the last 30 years. Built, operated and expanded the golf side of our business. Sport has always been part of my life; I’ve always been competitive. I got involved with the local shooting club, mainly as a way to get away from the farm for a few hours. As I improved, it became more and more competitive and I’ve been very lucky to represent the country, shooting clays around the world.

The farm is still very much part of our business. Being right on the border of a livestock/arable region, we’ve traditionally sold all of our straw, it was becoming increasingly clear to me that our sandstone land needed something putting back. We needed to improve the organic matter, so we stopped selling it and began incorporating it. The change of legislation around disposal of domestic garden waste opened up an opportunity to access compost locally. Over winters we were able to bring 2000-3000 tonnes of compost onto the farm, over a period of five to six years. I knew we were beginning to see very subtle changes to our soils.

Our soils are incredibly abrasive, you go ploughing on the wrong day and you can see the metal wear. Watching how the industry was changing, min- till, zero cultivation, changes in weather patterns, wet seasons, I knew we needed to do something different. In 2020 I bought a subsoiler, we’d never had one on the farm, the wet autumn of 2019 and warm dry spring of 2020 baked our sandy soils, consequently, or wheat yields crumbled. We used the Phillip Watkins Tri-till to establish our oil seed rape crop in 2020, possibly our best yielding rape crop we’ve ever grown.

Subconsciously, I knew I was going to do something differently. Technology has moved on, watching the farming press for a couple of years Direct Drills have moved forward from the Bettison DD we had here 50 years ago, I looked at a few different options, and without having a demo I decide that the Opico Sky drill offered me everything I needed from a Direct Drill. Aside from the benefits mentioned above another factor in the decision making was the looming reduction of the BPS payments, we’ve always done a bit of contracting, I saw an opportunity to be able to offer Direct Drilling service locally. It would be a way of filling that loss of the BPS, its first year has seen around 500 acres with the drill, the hope is to increase that acreage this autumn.

In two seasons we’d gone from plough-based crop establishment, to min- till with the Phillip Watkins Tri-till to having an 4M Opico Sky Drill on farm for autumn 2021 and growing cover crops!

I believe the transition across to Direct Drilling is something I’ve been working on for a number of years. By incorporating chopped straw and adding the compost, changing the soils structure has allowed me to take that step to go down the direct drill route. You often hear farmers say they’ve tried cover crops twice and they’ve failed, so it doesn’t work, it won’t in two years. It takes three to five years, it takes time and perseverance, finding the correct plants for your soils and not just planting one or two varieties either. Between my agronomist and seed supplier, we decided that to grow a six-way cover crop, 40ha into rape stubble, including vetch, clover, radish, rye and phacelia.

Rye was a mistake, especially in milling wheat, I’ll admit. I bottled it, I sprayed it all off, barring a couple of patches in different fields, cover crop varieties are something we need to look at differently this year Slugs were a bigger problem than we’ve experienced on this farm before, yes we maybe should have put slug pellets on at the time of drilling, the Sky drill is all set up to do that, but I’m pretty certain it’s down to the mat of chopped straw, which in previous years would have been moved or buried mechanically, I went straight in with the drill. I’ve invested in a 2nd hand straw rake for this year to see what difference that makes, I’m very happy to admit that I’m still learning, it’s still a bit of a journey of discovery!

We compromised the farm’s rotation when we built the golf course, the rotation of rape, wheat, wheat is what we’ve grown and will continue to do so moving forward, for the time being ,while trying to improve the soil quality with cover crops and using the Direct Drill to establish our cash crops. The farm is only part of my business and it needs to be easy to manage, the direct drill has already freed up time, reduced inputs, certainly on fuel costs, by as much as two thirds already. That is before you add in the wearing metal cost from previous systems and I believe we’ll continue to see reduced costs as the soil health and organic matter improves.

It’s very difficult to quantify, but I’m already starting to see a change to the ecology on the farm, as an SFI pilot farm, the first time we’ve ever entered into an environmental scheme, the wildlife on the farm seems to be increasing from not ploughing, from having green cover on fields between harvest and planting. We’re still learning, we tried broadcasting clover into a wheat crop, sadly it didn’t grow, but we’ll try again this autumn but with the drill as a companion crop. So far, the results have been very encouraging, the crops look as well as they have ever done on the old system, the Skyfall wheat looks fantastic and the oilseed rape looks much better than I hoped it would be. As ever in this job, the proof will be when it comes off the combine and over the weighbridge.

I look forward to updating you on how our first direct drilled harvest turns out later in the year.”
What’s Your Colour?

With three trade shows coming in quick succession this year, LAMMA, Cereals and Groundswell, the question of
which colour you like your steel painted comes into focus once again.

Written by James Warne from Soil First Farming

Along with the rise of the Conservation Agriculture techniques being adopted on more and more farms across the UK, the choice of zero-till drills seems to grow day-by-day. Significant government support incentives also has an involvement in driving this growth, but without the most sensible outcomes. Machinery manufacturers are showing their ability to design ever more sophisticated machines, mostly based around a disc style opener. Machines are becoming every larger and heavier and demand a greater draft requirement. Very few tine opener machines are available and are clearly not in favour, which needs to be addressed in our opinion.

As usual at this time of year, with wheat now full in ear across the country, the variation in crop establishment can now be seen. Consistent with the last few years a lot of thin zero-tilled crops are evident. The push for later and later drilling exacerbating this effect. This is the disc drill fallacy.

With many soils in the UK now very low in organic matter it has lost the glue which binds it together. Low organic matter soil has generally has poor structure, and tends to slump and compact easily. Without the glue and the structure soil no longer has the porosity for air and water to move freely within it. In our maritime climate there are times when our soils have to cope with prolonged periods of excess water. A lot of focus is put into sorting out failing drainage systems. While this is important, if the soil porosity is not connected to the drains its largely irrelevant.

Too often we see soils which have slumped due to low organic matter, and excess water, being late drilled with a disc drill. More often than not these crops tend to come through the winter low in plant numbers and are unable to tiller adequately to compensate, resulting in thin crops now being visible. Narrow knife style tine openers tend to operate better in the early years of zero-till on low OM soils. Tines will create a little tilth to improve seed to soil contact, whereas discs do not create any tilth. When the soil is moist a disc will actually smear the seed slot it creates further reducing drainage and restricting crop rooting. Seed slots created by disc drills in wet conditions may appear closed at the time of drilling but will open again as the soil dries in the spring exposing the root crown to the air.

With second cereals disc drills can also be problematic when drilling into chopped straw. Do not underestimate the effects of hair-pinning on the subsequent crop. Thin or small-eared second cereals seen now could be a result of the actions taken at drilling. It may not be the fault of a firm soil or lack of moisture or nutrition, it may simple by the wrong choice of drill for the situation.

Overcoming chemical imbalances within the soil can also help alleviate the effects of a soil with poor structure. The water retaining properties of magnesium are well understood.

Magnesium can hold onto 18 molecules of water when fully hydrated. Magnesium also has a relatively large charge density compared to other common soil elements like calcium so water has a greater attraction to magnesium. This tends to keep soils wetter and then dry rapidly, giving greater shrinkage when it finally dries. This shows when the slots open as the soil surface dries as mentioned above. It can also help with structure and porosity improving water movement and infiltration. Understanding how the magnesium and calcium balance is affecting your soil can lead to better decision making around drilling and crop establishment.

In our opinion a tine drill is critical for success in the early years of zerotill. Simple, uncomplicated, low draft requirement tine drills can have a very big impact on the success of zero-till adoption in the UK. The choice of disc versus tine drill at the point of drilling is a critical control point many growers are overlooking. Simple tine drills give great opportunities and low draft requirements even with large output potential.
Farmer Focus – Andy Howard

From Drought to Deluge

I am sitting here today (May 24th) listening to Thunderstorms outside. In the last 6 days we have had around 50ml of rain which has been very appreciated. This time last week it was 26 degrees, and the crops were wilting and looking very drought stressed, amazing the difference a week makes. It can stop raining now though!!

Last week I started “Operation Zero Tolerance” for Blackgrass. Apart from a couple of fields our BG levels are fairly low, but for the levels to remain low, I believe the only way forward for us is to not let any plants go to seed. It is a lot of arduous work, which I do not really enjoy but it has been very satisfying to see certain fields that were once a bit of an issue in the past, now have such low levels. There are a couple of benefits spending lots of time out in the fields. Firstly, it gives you time to think and reflect on what you have got right and wrong this year and then secondly, is that you get a chance to really inspect the wheat crops and notice things you would not from the sprayer. One thing that has been noticeable is that our wheat variety blend has coped better the with the drought than the straight Crusoe (see picture). For this reason and the fact that Crusoe is so prone to Brown rust, it has made me think we should be using a variety blend instead of straight Crusoe going forward, let us see what the combine says first.

Talking of Brown Rust brings me onto another subject. At the beginning of the season, I was hoping that we could go all year without using fungicides, unfortunately I have not managed that feat. A couple of fields of Crusoe had brown rust fairly early, which we have had to treat. There is always a reason a plant gets disease and after a sap analysis we discovered that these fields had a shortage of Magnesium and Phosphate which allowed the rust to develop. I probably have not been tissue testing regularly enough this year and did not pick this deficiency up early enough, lesson learnt for next year.

This year we have been using Silica as a foliar nutrient and again we have learned lessons for next season. I was hoping Silica would help us avoid the use fungicides but so far this has not been the case. I have seen silica suppress disease but not to cure it. It seems that once the disease is established in the crop, you must use fungicides. The silica is useful to keep disease out. Where we went wrong was not putting any silica down next to the seed with the drill last Autumn. Also, this spring, we started with the foliar Silica rates too low. Another point, if the rest of the plant nutrition is not balanced, you cannot expect the silica nutrition alone to keep disease out.

This spring I have been experimenting with low Nitrogen rates on wheat. One field has only had 70kg/ha/N of solid N and will end up with two foliar N sprays, so far you cannot tell the difference compared to the rest of our wheat and I am hoping the combine cannot tell the difference either, then I will not need to buy another load of overpriced fertiliser. The spring crops have established well into what was mostly dust at the time. The Bean/OSR intercrop is coming together (see picture). I have failed several times with Spring OSR, but we changed the agronomy this year and it seems to have established better. The linseed with its’ Oat companion is looking great. Finally, our lentil/camelina intercrop is just visible in the rows (see picture). I have never grown Camelina so this could be interesting!!

Hopefully, since this rain we can look forward to this harvest after a couple of difficult years. Long way to go yet though!
My Nuffield Journey And Beyond

It’s amazing how one book can change your life. For 2022 Nuffield Farming Scholar Emily Padfield, this one book was For the Love of Soil by Nicole Masters.

Many describe having their ‘eureka’ moment whilst undertaking their Nuffield Scholarship. Although I am only at the start of my Nuffield journey (having undertaken only a few visits). I believe my ‘epiphany’ occurred before I had applied for my Scholarship. I was standing in the lambing shed in March 2021 (only just over a year ago), busily filling a syringe with Pen and Strep to inject all lambs at birth as we had had an outbreak of joint-ill in our early lambing bunch. I had also sourced a probiotic to then give to each lamb to replenish the gut bacteria I was busily killing with the injection.

At the same time, I was listening on Audible (other audio book providers are available) to ‘For the Love of Soil’ by Nicole Masters. The more I listened, the more I realised that what we were doing had some fundamental flaws. To each problem in my life, whether it be animal or crop health, financial, emotional or human health related, I had always looked for a solution, a cure, a ‘quick fix’. What this book made me realise was that we were looking at everything the wrong way round. We needed to stop the problems happening in the first place, or at least understand why they were happening so we could try to prevent them happening at all. From that moment on, my partner Mark (whose family farm we work together) and I started realising there was a different path we wanted to follow.

Never one to hang around (again one of my many flaws) I started to read everything I could about this ‘new’ way of doing things: Regenerative Farming. The more you read, the more you realise there is truth in the adage ‘there’s nothing new in farming’. Mark started remembering methods and ways his grandfather had used, the number of species he had on the farm before policy and economics governed farms to specialise and expand numbers to become more efficient and profitable. He also remembered the plenitude of life that coexisted here before the use of artificial inputs. He recollected the masses of beetles and insects when combining in his old cab-less combine, seeing the grain teeming with life when unloading the auger. He recalled the health of the livestock without all the different products that are now sold to us at huge expense.

A NEW WAY OF THINKING

The first step we took on our journey was to get regenerative advisor and fellow Nuffield Scholar Ben Taylor-Davies to come and have a chat with us on the farm. We outlined what we wanted to achieve, and it seemed to fit with his way of thinking too. We dug holes, took in-depth soil samples, applied lime and gypsum and bought a sward lifter in a bid to get our compacted clay soils in better health. We had re-introduced cattle five years ago by sourcing dairy beef heifers and steers, keeping the heifers we liked to establish a small suckler herd of 40 or so cows plus followers. Up until then, we had been purely sheep for several years, running 800 plus North Country Mule and Cheviot X ewes, lambing in late February indoors.

We are permanent stock fenced on most of our acreage and field sizes are between 20 to 40 acres. Mark has always loathed electric fencing, so this was a major concern for me as I knew getting involved in strip grazing could cause friction. Since our change in policy, I have since sourced some semipermanent electric fencing from fellow regenerative grazier and Nuffield Scholar Alex Brewster at Powered Pasture and also invested in some geared reels for ease of subdividing fields into smaller paddocks.

Due to a bit of restructuring to allow Mark’s sons some land to start their own businesses on, we reduced sheep numbers to around 450 ewes suit our acreage and started rotational grazing with both sheep and cattle, with regular, if not daily moves.

Our grass management fundamentally changed in this first year. No longer did we set-stock or consider short grazing the ‘best’ thing for sheep like we have for many years. We started to look at multi-species swards and planted our first true herbal ley (failing the first attempt, partly by drilling too early and also having an extremely dry spring). Including chicory in pastures was nothing new on the farm, with Mark having re-established a grass ley with a herb rich ley more than ten years ago.

Our grass management fundamentally changed in this first year. No longer did we set-stock or consider short grazing the ‘best’ thing for sheep like we have for many years. We started to look at multi-species swards and planted our first true herbal ley (failing the first attempt, partly by drilling too early and also having an extremely dry spring). Including chicory in pastures was nothing new on the farm, with Mark having re-established a grass ley with a herb rich ley more than ten years ago.

I also undertook a Savory Institute Holistic Management Course through 3LM at the impressive FarmEd facility established by Cotswold Seeds founder Ian Wilkinson. Amongst many other things this helped me keep a ‘holistic context’ central to decision-making processes.

Early into my regenerative journey I found a small herd of crossbred goats, and later in the summer a good number of chickens. I now know you should never get these species without being fully ready and fenced for them, but you live and learn!

Other changes in farm policy have included dropping fertiliser completely although I have to point out we applied very little to silage crops and we hope to at least reduce cattle housing this coming winter through bale grazing hay before having to bring animals in. This year we also pushed lambing a bit later (partly due to my Nuffield Scholarship Conference being early March) and lambed much of our flock outside. We were lucky with the weather but have been extremely pleased with the results so far. I would be confident to say that unless weather turns really ugly next lambing season we won’t be bringing any sheep indoors from now on.

Rightly or wrongly this year we have direct-drilled our AB9 stewardship option, and although it’s early days we couldn’t have wished for better weather. We sprayed post drilling in a bid to get rid of the considerable thistle burden, and I wait with bated breath to see the outcome. Often it’s difficult to reason between traditionally conventional and regenerative methods and I have to admit to getting myself tied in knots over chemical or tillage use. But I do not think that’s uncommon and there are many more established regenerative farmers struggling with the same dilemmas.

THE START OF MY NUFFIELD JOURNEY

Following encouragement from Ben Taylor-Davies, I decided to apply for a Nuffield Scholarship. I had been aware of Nuffield for many years, having worked as an agricultural journalist before meeting Mark and joining him on the farm. I had always held great reverence for anyone who had undertaken a scholarship, and I didn’t expect to get through the selection process, so was ecstatic to be selected. Many Scholars talk about having ‘imposter syndrome’ and I am still very much still experiencing this, but the Nuffield family is such a tight-knit and welcoming one that we have a fantastic support group to rely on.

My topic is: The mob-grazed flerd: Improving soil, biodiversity and farm incomes. A ‘flerd’ is a mixture of species running together as one flock or herd. We haven’t cracked it quite yet, although we are currently running sheep, cows and goats as one group. The chicken tractor is being built as we speak. I am hoping to visit farmers who are successfully grazing animals together like this, however I appreciate there are limitations so it’s a question of whether it’s even a good idea.

So far, I have travelled to Kansas to the No Till on the Plains Conference (I urge you to attend if you haven’t already), visited many mob-graziers in England and travelled the length of Scotland visiting like-minded livestock farmers. I travel to Portugal in June and in October I, alongside a number of other Scholars, will visit the Savory Institute in Zimbabwe before heading to a number of ranches and facilities across the country before heading onto Zambia. I am and will continue to be forever grateful for the wonderful opportunity that a Nuffield Farming Scholarship has given me to travel and learn how to be a better farmer. I am also passionate about communicating what I learn to others in the industry.

I hesitate to bang the ‘regenerative farming’ drum. I believe in all its concepts and realise it embodies so many aspects, but I am acutely aware that it is dangerous to create a ‘them’ and ‘us’ discourse amongst farmers. We are all striving for betterment together. I just want to be a good farmer. Good to our soil, our environment, our animals, our crops, our consumers and ourselves.

2023 NUFFIELD FARMING SCHOLARSHIPS

• Applications for 2023 Nuffield Farming Scholarships are now open online until 31 July 2022 and can be completed by visiting www.NuffieldScholar.org and clicking the “Apply” button.

• Nuffield are hosting a series of “open sessions” this summer for potential applicants to ask questions and get help to complete their applications.