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REGENERATIVE AGRICULTURE – THE NEXT STEP FOR THE WHOLE SUPPLY CHAIN

Written by Rebecca Hesketh, Agriculture Manager for Fresh Produce at Waitrose & Partners

Many of us are asking whether this point in history is one we will look back on as when a ‘shift’ occurred in our system that changed the course of lives and the agricultural industry. There are many aspects of the agricultural world that may feel like they are on shifting sands at the moment, but the opportunity that presents itself through regenerative agriculture may just have some of the answers we need when facing the challenges ahead of this industry.

Whilst regenerative agriculture may feel familiar to many of the readers of Direct Driller Magazine whom I’m sure have long been farming with soil health in mind, we have found it helpful to further define what this means to us, drawing upon the number of definitions out there at the moment. To us, regenerative agriculture is a system of farming that increases biodiversity and enriches soils, therefore improving water quality, enhancing ecosystem services and capturing carbon in the soil. This definition allows us to bring this concept to life within our business and supply chains, to set ambitions and to build a plan to achieve them. There are many different ways we would look to work with our farmers to put this into practice on farm, but whatever we ask our farmers to do, it is important to us to ensure it’s meaningful and relevant to their farming business. There is no one size fits all! One area of focus will be building the health of our soils, which may be achieved through practices such as using cover crops and minimising soil disturbance. Importantly, through the practical application of regenerative agriculture through practices such as these, the benefits are seen not only in the improvement of our soil, but also in the quality of our water, the health of our surrounding ecosystems and just quite possibly the wider planet’s health too.

It is this that particularly draws us to regenerative agriculture, a movement that was built upon the foundations of conservation agriculture and has grown up from the grassroots movement started by the Rodale Institute and the revered Gabe Brown’s of this world. Through the lens of regenerative agriculture, healthy soil is seen as not a happy by-product in a supply chain, but as a core part of what farming achieves alongside the supply of food and a healthy ecosystem with thriving biodiversity. Seeing those vital parts of farming as just as important as what is produced to be sold. It can be best explained as a holistic framework through which to view farming and food supply in the future with the dual purpose of producing food that is both good for us and also the environment, doing more than just maintaining the current state of our planet, but enhancing it. Surely regeneration feels like the right path for us to be taking in a post-lockdown world with the looming challenges of the climate and biodiversity crises ahead.

These challenges require our system to evolve. The UN warns that we only have until the end of this decade to act against the climate crisis. The World Economic Forum warns that ‘biodiversity is declining globally, faster than at any other time in human history.’ Alongside this soil degradation is rightly causing concern to many, with recent studies finding that 16% of the conventionally managed soils looked at in the research had lifespans of less than a century. This gloomy picture has led influential thinkers within the business and agriculture communities to state that all businesses in the future will need to become regenerative. The key in this is ALL businesses – from the farmer to the retailer – we all need to be part of this progression towards becoming regenerative and to work as partners to make changes. This is why we want to start a conversation with our growers about the future of regenerative agriculture on our farms. 

We at Waitrose have long worked closely with our suppliers and our growers to create finely tuned supply chains in order to make sure that food can arrive safely onto our customer’s plates. Over these past twelve months, we have seen an incredible amount of pressure applied to our carefully constructed supply chains. When you consider the possibility that the world may become yet more volatile and uncertain with the impact of environmental degradation and the increasing frequency of extreme weather events, it is difficult not to argue for an even stronger system of supply for the future.

This is one of the areas where regenerative agriculture offers potential for our food system. A healthy soil can be more resilient to environmental shocks, protecting this asset and its yield capacity for years to come, whilst thriving biodiversity on farm provides a wealth of ecosystem services. Underpinning our food supply with healthy, regenerating natural resources ensures a reliable base for food production for the future, benefitting a whole supply system on which it is based. Therefore we must work together to realise these benefits. Working in partnership with our farmers and the wider agriculture system is a key part of the way we work at Waitrose and Partners. T

he vast majority of our growers have been supplying Waitrose for multiple years and, through our suppliers, work in partnership with us to face the challenges ahead. Waitrose was founded over 100 years ago and in 100 years time we still want to be providing healthy food from flourishing farms. This is why as part of our Waitrose Agriculture Strategy we intend to embrace regenerative agriculture and play our part in regenerating the natural resources on which we rely. Through sequestering carbon into the soil and keeping it there, we are sure that regenerative agriculture will also play a key role in helping us to achieve our target of net zero across our UK farming base by 2035.

We recognise the important role that knowledge plays in bringing regenerative agriculture to life and this is why alongside these ambitions, we will aim to lead by example on our own farm, the Leckford Estate, innovating, learning and sharing new ways of farming. Alongside this we will continue to strengthen the partnerships we have built with organisations such as LEAF and Innovative Farmers. These partners work closely with us and our farmers to help us to farm with nature. They help us to ensure the right environmental approaches are in place on farm and bring agricultural research to life practically.

Customers are at the heart of every decision we make at Waitrose and the consideration of regenerative agriculture is no exception. The UK has seen an exponential growth in spending on ethically sourced goods over the past two decades, with figures showing spending by consumers on sustainable products reached £29.7bn in 2018, up from £3.1bn in 1999. It is arguable that the last year will have accelerated this trend. Alongside this, the presence of documentaries such as the inspirational Kiss the Ground on the popular streaming site Netflix demonstrates our customers’ interest in farming to regenerate. This is an opportunity to show farming can be a positive force in the action against environmental crises. Over in the US, regenerative agriculture has been taken up by household names, including Wallmart and General Mills, both of whom have made commitments to advance regenerative agriculture where they farm. Clearly these companies, their farmers and their customers see the benefits of a regenerative system.

Our customers make it clear to us that they want us to act in the face of the climate crisis and those crises facing the natural world. Regenerative agriculture could be the solution we need, offering a stronger system through which to supply food, whilst acting to mitigate climate change, biodiversity loss and soil degradation. As a business with customers at its heart and a mission to ‘do the right thing’, applying regenerative thinking to the way we work feels like the right path to take for a responsible business that cares about our planet. This is a path that requires the support of the whole supply chain to make it a success, from the farmer to the retailer and all the businesses both between and around them. To me it’s clear that this step is in all of our best interests to take and it might just be in our planet’s best interest too.

As a retailer that prides itself on working together with our suppliers, we welcome your thoughts on regenerative agriculture and would love for you to get in touch to share your views. You can contact me via LinkedIn.

while listening to Radio 1)

John Aynsley, runs a 1,302ha mixed farm near Saltburn-by-the-Sea in the north east of England. Barn Farm with 566 ha of arable cropping in a predominantly cereals rotation has recently seen a system change to direct drilling. The transition has been followed and directed by the local AHDB Monitor Farm programme group. Read on to hear about this journey and John’s early conclusions…

Looking back through the mists of time to the 1970/80’s, when as a young man, ploughing was just what you did to start to prepare a seed bed to plant a crop. This was followed by double discing, harrowing, drilling and finally if it had not all got too wet, rolling. Radios were blaring out Radio 1 that you could not really hear above the noise of the tractor, while you were bouncing around in basic cabs. Happy days. The soils turned over beautifully, smelled wonderful and earthy, loads of worms and seagulls munching their way through them. Then power harrows appeared, WOW, one pass following the plough then drill and roll. Then we got really clever and put the drill on top of the power harrow, the combination was born. We thought we were really good then, more hp, more weight, better radios and CD`s and cab suspension. The halcyon days.

And it all worked well and still does for many businesses, drilling seeds/sq.m a lot more accurately, with more even crop emergence and establishment, and lower labour and fuel costs. It was only moving from energetic and naïve youthfulness into middle age, that I saw that the very soils that we once turned over so beautifully, that were so fibrous with organic matter and worms, had become depleted into poorer soils that with the first shower of rain became more difficult to work. How had this crept up behind me without really being aware of it? That was the light bulb moment when I knew we had to start to change.

Starting out on the journey to change

Our rotations had become too short and relied too much on OSR to be our saviour, there was no grass or livestock in the rotation. What would previous generations have made of this I wonder, probably already knowing the answer.

So, the journey to direct drilling had started, but like a lot of things in life it is never a straight or smooth road. It was certainly helped by attending a conference at Driffield in 2011 and listening to different people share their knowledge and experience of the move toward min till, direct drilling or regen agriculture, whatever you want to call it. It was at this point that I met Steve Townsend, who started to help us make that transition to better soils and different establishment methods. At first my agronomist David Coates and I had many discussions and brain storming sessions around the kitchen table, to try to understand exactly what Steve was advising us to look at and move towards.

To start with we did more soil sampling looking at a wider analysis, and in our case, it was showing an imbalance between the magnesium and calcium ratios. Once we started to correct this imbalance our soils have become easier to work with, had a bit more tilth in the top few inches and didn’t revert to a plasticine consistency when things get a bit wet. It will always be work in progress, but you have to start somewhere. The transition to min till is fairly easy and straightforward once you figure out which cultivator and drill suits the farm and system you want to adopt. The next stage however is a bit trickier, this is when the mindset and focus are really challenged.

Monitor Farm programme opportunity

I was given the opportunity to become a monitor farmer as part of the AHDB programme. This gave me the chance to move from min till to direct drilling on 260 acres as part of a 3-year project. Once I had committed to that there was no going back, we would find out whether we could make it work or not. As part of the project, I had to form a Steering Group and we agreed our aims would be to include winter beans and cover crops in the rotation, try to control sterile brome which is our biggest grass weed problem, direct drill all beans and cereals, to see whether the effect of these changes starts to improve the soil and ask whether it can all be profitable. 

We bought a second hand Horsch CO6 drill to do the direct drilling for £10,500. This has proved to be more than adequate for the job, it only needs 150hp on the front travelling at 7/8kph. One of the things that I have learned since we started min tilling and direct drilling is that the earlier we get the crops in the ground with a higher than normal seed rate the better they are. The one discipline that we try very hard to stick to is if the soil starts sticking to the tractor tyres get out of the field as it is too wet, and we will be doing more damage than good, hence the need to get on early.

We have been benchmarking the whole arable area through AHDB for several years now, so it is interesting to compare the different costs/income from min till and direct drilling. The 3-year Monitor Farm project is not really long enough to come to any firm conclusions about whether we have managed to achieve all our objectives, but we will continue to monitor the changes over the years ahead.

Early conclusions

What I can say with some certainty however is that direct drilling does work, it uses a lot less labour and fuel. First wheat and bean yields are equally as good as min till. The inclusion of winter beans into a wider rotation is helping improve the soil structure, where we have severe brome the use of cover crops and glyphoshate followed by minimal soil disturbance drilling is certainly working. As to the profitability, I think the weather still has probably the biggest influence over both systems. We are doing more direct drilling year on year and I am fairly sure that we are seeing the benefits of this through better tilth, increased worm numbers and soil smelling a lot better, although as it took some time for the soils to become depleted, it will take time for them to repair. We will have to allow mother nature to do her bit unimpeded by poor practice and hopefully this will help accelerate the process.

Moving to direct drilling I feel that we now have a better understanding of our soils and of what we should and should not do to them, but it is and always will be, work in progress. It does require more attention to detail and it certainly does not look as good to the eye until it gets above the stubble, but as long as it delivers profitability then the soils will improve and we will be able to lower our input costs.

Full Paper published by Caroline Harkness, Francisco J. Areal. Mikhail A. Semeno, Nimai Senapati, Ian F. Shield, Jacob Bishop

Subsidies paid to farmers for protecting the environment lead to more stable incomes compared with payments based purely on the number of hectares being farmed, according to a new study of farms in England and Wales. The findings are of great relevance as, post-Brexit, the UK moves to the new Environmental Land Management subsidy system. The research, from Rothamsted Research, the University of Reading and Newcastle University, also shows that farmers shouldn’t put all their eggs in one basket, as those diversifying into a wider variety of crops or livestock receive more consistent year-to-year incomes – as do those who reduce their use of fertiliser and pesticides.

Lead author and PhD student, Caroline Harkness said: “Farmers are facing increasing pressures due to changes in climate, government policy and prices. Instability in farm income can be a real challenge. It was interesting, and encouraging, to find that farms adopting environmentally friendly practices also had more stable incomes.

“Farmers may be benefiting financially from their environmental management, while in contrast an increase in direct payments per hectare was associated with less stable farm income. “Environmentally friendly farming practices including engaging in agrienvironment schemes, diversifying outputs, and reducing the use of chemical inputs such as fertiliser and pesticides, are associated with ecological and environmental benefits and importantly could also increase the stability of farm income.”

The researchers examined data from the Farm Business Survey for 2333 farms in England and Wales, between 2007-2015, for a range of different farm types. Using statistical models, the team examined the effect of farming practices and subsidies on the stability of farm income, and their relative importance over the nine-year period.

An increase in direct subsidies paid to farmers based on the area farmed was associated with less stable farm income, across most farm types. In contrast, dairy, general cropping and mixed farms that received more agri-environmental payments had more stable incomes in the short and medium-term. However, farms in the so called Less Favoured Areas – predominantly upland farms who graze sheep or cattle, do not see the same stability benefits from agrienvironmental payments. Ms Harkness said: “Farms in the uplands are already operating in challenging environments and many of the options in agri-environment schemes may not be available or well suited to deliver ecosystem service benefits in these landscapes.”

The results also showed that greater diversity in crop and livestock activities increased the stability of farm income, in dairy, general cropping, cereal and mixed farms – but this was not an important factor for farms that primarily graze livestock. “Increasing diversity of outputs could make farm businesses more resilient to economic shocks or price fluctuations,” says Ms Harkness. Reducing the input intensity also seems to be an important factor increasing the stability of income for all farm types, she added.

“With rising input prices, a concern of many farmers is to control the use of expensive inputs. Whilst farms with higher input costs are more likely to have higher outputs this does not always translate to a higher farm business income, and these farms also saw larger fluctuations in income.”

Dr Jake Bishop, Lecturer in Crop Science and Production from the University of Reading’s School of Agriculture, Policy & Development said: “Our latest research is interesting as it shows that farms that were adopting environmental management actually benefitted financially from their stewardship. This is encouraging news for farmers as the UK moves to the Environmental Land Management scheme.

“Diversifying outputs and more efficient use of agrochemicals is also associated with environmental and ecological benefits, including for soils and pollinators, these benefits may have translated into more stable farm incomes over the nine years we examined.”

One of the many aspirations producers will have when moving to a regenerative farming system is to take a fresh look at both variable costs and fixed costs in connection with their whole farming system.

Written by Nigel Wellings, Director ,Acres Insurance Brokers

I will base my thoughts for this article on combinable cropping farms

For many producers significant cost savings are achieved in terms of variable costs.(seed, fert and sprays) From my own farming experience it was always difficult to get variable costs below the £500/ha mark. Yet I have a number of regenerative farming clients regularly achieving variable costs in the £380- £420/ha range without any significant fall in output.

From a fixed costs point of view labour and machinery are the 2 most significant items and again there is a huge scope for savings here. Gary Markham from Land & Family business quoted fixed costs of £350/ha against £449/ha for conventional farms in his benchmarking survey for No Till Farms in 2019. He concluded that one of the main drivers of profit is machinery costs. Lowering machinery costs especially in terms of self propelled items (tractors, sprayer, combine etc) will have a direct effect on insurance costs. As a general rule something like 50%-66% of Insurance Costs on a conventional farming business will be for the vehicles insured on the farm. Therefore the less horsepower used per hectare generally the lower insurance costs will be.

Benchmarking Insurance costs is fraught with difficulty because included in the majority of farm insurance bills are items such as private cars,houses and house contents and other personal items that do not really relate to the business. There will also be major differences in insurance costs between an owner occupier having to Insure all houses and farm buildings and a tenant who does not have to. Insurance Costs will range between £10ha and £20ha on a larger combinable cropping business. The marginal costs of adding further contract/share farmed land to this will tend to be very low-often around the £1/ha mark.

As an example I have looked at the Insurance costs for 1 combinable cropping farm on 1000ha, both whilst using conventional tillage and since moving to a NO till regime. Under a conventional system the prime movers consisted of an Agco Challenger Crawler at a value of £220 000, Bateman Self Propelled Sprayer at £180 000, Claas Lexion 770 Combine at £230 000 and 3 John Deere tractors at £40 000, £90 000 and £120 000. Total value tied up in self propelled kit is £880 000 (£880/ ha). For Comprehensive insurance on all these items plus implements and trailers the client was paying approx. £7500 per annum (£7.50/ha)

Since moving to No Till the machinery fleet has been drastically altered, Out has gone the Challenger Crawler along with Sumo Trio and Vaderstadt drill,No longer using a self propelled sprayer this has been replaced by a large trailed unit (with no insurance cost because it is automatically insured as an implement). Combine remains as before. Of the 3 John Deere tractors the one at £40,000 remains as a secondary machine and the 2 frontline ones- 250hp and 310 HP have been upgraded so are now insured at £125,000 and £150,000 respectively. Total value tied up in prime movers is now down to £545,000 and from an Insurance costs point of view the premium came down to £4500 in 2020 (£4.50/ha). Overall the total Insurance bill on this farm has moved from £16,500 to around £12,500 (£12.5/ha) since the move to No Till. Other Insurance costs on this farm include 3 cars, 2 pick ups, telehandler, 2 extensive ranges of farm buildings, 4 houses and contents, crop insurance Public Liability, Employers Liability etc.

The particular farm that this example comes from is located in the East Midlands on medium-heavy soils and had already achieved a 20% premium saving when they moved across to Acres Insurance in 2019, having previously been Insured with a major Insurer for decades. The Insurance covers had not been subject to any independent scrutiny in the past and this was reflected in the fact that the farm buildings and 2 of the houses were vastly under-insured prior to moving Insurers. The cost of correcting this was relatively low. Another common problem that we encounter is that many Insurers and their Farm Insurance Advisors do not understand the difference between a Whole Farm Contractor/ Contract Farmer and an Agricultural Contractor.

It is important that this is fully explained and understood by the Insurer. The Contract Farmer carries out all operations from stubble to stubble on the same land year on year, he often also has an interest in the crop. The Agric Contractor does individual operation work , often on a fire brigade basis over a wide geographical area. Insurers claims records will show that claims made by Agric Contractors are generally more regular and more expensive. Hence the fact that premiums for businesses doing more than 50% individual operation work will be around double that of the Contract Farmer/ Own Farmer. We consistently come across farm businesses paying 20-40% more than they should because they have wrongly been bracketed by Insurers as Agric Contractors. Ensure this does not happen to you.

Insurance is an input just like any other therefore it deserves the same scrutiny that you apply to purchasing fertiliser, chemicals etc. There are a number of Independent Brokers throughout the UK specialising in Farm Insurance and capable of delivering good independent advice. When choosing a Broker make sure they are prepared to take the time to fully understand your farming business, its aims and aspirations and that they will look to conduct an annual on farm review with you. Price is important and their can be scope for saving but quality independent advice is just as important.

Savings in Insurance costs are obviously no where near as large as those being achieved in terms of labour and machinery costs with No Till Farming, but they help make another contribution to improving bottom line profit whilst at the same time ensuring you have the optimum Insurance in place is important to protect the business against major liabilities and losses.

Written by Thomas Preuße, Chief Editor “DLG-Mitteilungen” and DLG-Agrifuture Magazine

Forgoing glyphosate will increase the demands made on the cultivation system as a whole. It is vital to minimise
the pressure caused by weeds overall. Replacing glyphosate with one single alternative measure is therefore barely
conceivable, especially in systems that do not involve the use of ploughs. Wherever ploughing is not possible or desirable, greater importance will also (have to) be given to crop rotation and/or intercrops because of this.

Are Iron and Electricity the Answer

If the curtain really does come down on using glyphosate at the end of 2023 in the EU we do not yet know if the UK will follow. However, it does not mean either the end of the world or necessarily a forced return to ploughing. But it will certainly make life more difficult for regenerative farmers. They will have to think more extensively in terms of ‘the system’ than ‘the measure’. In the future, arable farming will not be led by the technology; instead, the technology will follow the arable farming objective.

For a while, the situation surrounding the most controversial crop protection active substance of all time had settled down a little, but the date has been set. Glyphosate is only approved throughout the EU until the end of 2022, and that is next year. Even if the active substance were to be registered again at EU level and approved nationally, its use will either be restricted in terms of quantity and/or will only be possible in special cases: the product has long since had its heyday. At times, it accounted for 70% of the crop protection agent volumes used in Germany. Another reason why glyphosate is so popular is that it can also be used to control volunteers such as grass weeds and rapeseed and not just rhizomatous weeds.

Farmers may say ‘If I can’t use glyphosate, I’ll just have to start ploughing again.

And many of them will do exactly that or are already doing so today. After all of their positive experiences, others don’t want to see a plough on their land again at any price. Amongst others, Detlev Dölger and Wiebke Lenge of Hanse Agro, a private consulting company headquartered in Schleswig-Holstein, believe that both groups should rethink their stances. The standard for the technology must be the arable farming objective – and only this, not the existing technology. To determine this objective and therefore make the right decision, it is necessary to ask oneself several questions, whereby the question concerning grass weeds is at the very bottom of the list.

• What are the demands of the subsequent crop; what time remains until sowing?

• Does the soil have to be loosened? • What about the volume of straw and chop quality?

• How deep down is the germination moisture? Where is it (too) dry or (too) moist?

• What must/can I do to control rhizomatous weeds, grasses, slugs, mice or cutworms?

Winter rapeseed after winter cereal, for instance, is a classic case in which forgoing glyphosate may pose a problem.

The time between harvesting and sowing is very short, and it is very tempting to use a plough before sowing. It couldn’t be easier: the straw is ploughed under, grass weeds are buried and the soil is sufficiently loosened. No wonder that plough sales have picked up again, although some people had already consigned this implement to the ‘scrap heap of history’. Boundary ploughing to control the influx of grasses is a widespread standard. But is it really necessary? If the location is dry, the straw can be easily worked in and sufficient time is available, there is nothing to suggest that tillage and cultivation cannot be undertaken without the use of a plough. Here, Hanse Agro recommends shallow cultivating (4 – 6 cm and 6 – 8 cm) twice to distribute and mix in the straw, then deep cultivating once and perhaps shallow cultivating once more as ‘false seedbed’ just before sowing. If grasses and volunteer rapeseed are involved, however, the objective is to leave their seeds as close to the surface as possible, encourage them to emerge and then control them mechanically. This is when very shallow tillage to a depth of 2 cm comes into play. Implements for this have been increasingly launched onto the market in recent years. A special share may possibly be required for loosening. Hanse Agro is going one step further in trials for problematic locations: precision sowing of rapeseed in wide rows enables subsequent hoeing to control grass weeds and/or volunteer rapeseed.

If sowing winter wheat after winter rapeseed is involved, compact disc harrows are often the solution and problem at the same time.

Working in too early and too deeply prevents the volunteer rapeseed from emerging. Again, the consultants recommend flat tillage several times using harrows, rollers or even mulchers in this case. The latter solution is expensive but very good for arable farming purposes because it encourages the rapeseed to germinate without it being buried.

In dry locations, the yield is often determined by forgoing ploughing due to water conservation.

Trials conducted by the Federal State Institute for Agriculture and Horticulture in Bernburg (LLG) of Saxony-Anhalt confirm this in a sugar beet – spring barley – winter wheat – winter barley crop rotation. Real conflicts of interest occur here: glyphosate was not required with ploughing or deep mulch seeding but led to poorer cost effectiveness (higher effort and/or lower yield). Shallow mulch seeding, strip tillage and direct sowing were not possible at this location in Saxony-Anhalt without this active substance, especially with high pressure from volunteer plants in tight crop rotations. Extending the crop rotation (in this case with lucerne) along with consistent harrowing and mulching subsequently kept the pressure caused by weeds to a manageable level in this trial. Together with glyphosate, however, we may also have to bid farewell to pure direct sowing forever. The conclusion drawn by Dr Joachim Bischoff (LLG) is that action recommendations as a patent solution are impossible. Instead, weed control should be regarded far more as a holistic system of diverse arable farming and crop production measures adapted to the specific location.

Before row crops.

A second ‘domain’ of glyphosate is its application prior to maize or sugar beet sown using mulch seeding in the spring. The ‘opponents’ are old weeds as well as catch crops that have not or not sufficiently been killed off during the winter. The objective is to achieve the best possible catch crop stock in order to suppress weeds. Of course, this is very difficult to establish in dry years such as 2018. The catch crop can be mechanically removed prior to vegetation. However, the prerequisite is that the soil can be driven on.

A spring-toothed harrow with uniformly shallow-cutting double-disc coulters particularly stood out in trials conducted at Bingen University of Applied Sciences with sugar beet. While the disc harrow enabled the intercrop to be regulated well, it was unable to control weeds and grass weeds. Pelargonic acid is occasionally claimed to be a substitute for glyphosate, but it proved ineffective in these trials. Straw mulch seeding is only considered to have a slight likelihood of success. Glyphosate is not needed for maize mulch seeding, as shown by trials in southern and eastern Germany and reported on by Klaus Gehring of the Bavarian State Research Center for Agriculture. Weed control using selective herbicides functioned equally well, unlike direct sowing or strip-till systems which are reliant on pre-treatment.

Electrophysical method.

Compared to glyphosate, the use of electricity as a herbicide substitute appears to be a niche solution, but without the total herbicide, even implements such as the ‘Elektroherb’ are attracting attention. A generator driven by the PTO produces electricity that reaches the plants, where it is distributed, via skids in the tractor’s front-mounted implement. In trials conducted so far, it has proved effective in controlling stubborn rhizomatous weeds and also in killing intercrops. Apparently, organisms in the soil are barely harmed. A further developed version of this system wets the plants with an electrolyte solution before the electricity is applied. This enables the necessary voltage to be significantly reduced and increases the system’s comparatively low efficiency.

Conclusion: don’t just deal with the symptoms. As has already been mentioned, forgoing glyphosate will increase the demands made on the cultivation system as a whole. It is vital to minimise the pressure caused by weeds overall. Replacing glyphosate with one single alternative measure is therefore barely conceivable, especially in systems that do not involve the use of ploughs. Wherever ploughing is not possible or desirable, greater importance will also (have to) be given to crop rotation and/ or intercrops because of this.