Cover crops for integrated weed management
Cover crops can suppress weeds and volunteers by competing for light, water and nutrients. Some species also release chemicals that inhibit weed development.
Research
The power of diversity
A change in English law now allows certain gene-edited crops to be grown on commercial farms. Tech Farmer visits the scientists working with a new farmer-led platform that will make the first three introductions. Rarely would you find so many misfits in the same place. Looking closely you can see spikelets within a wheat ear …
Resistance is futile
Three start-ups are looking at new ways to deliver effective crop protection solutions that could overcome current resistance issues. Tech Farmer gets the insight. Tiny carbon particles, not dissimilar to burnt sugar, could hold the key to a completely new method of delivering crop protection. First discovered in 2004, carbon dots are extremely small spherical …
The trait that could transform wheat farming
The discovery of a grass that makes its own antibiotics may have wide-reaching implications for restoring soil health and improving water quality. Tech Farmer considers the implications of the trait for UK wheats. There’s a type of grass that thrives in the tropical pastures of Colombia that confounded scientists for decades. Brachiaria has been dubbed …
Levy-funded trials help fine-tune fungicide choice
AHDB Technical Content Manager Jason Pole explains the role of the fungicide performance information in choosing the best technology to protect crops. For 30 years, there’s been a trusted team that’s tested the efficacy of chemistry used to battle major crop diseases in the fungicide performance project. The wheat trial series is the oldest, going …
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Precision future for pesticide application
Precision application techniques enable farmers to deliver products more effectively and with greater accuracy onto intended targets, says James Thomas, Syngenta Head of Precision Agriculture EU+. Rapid adoption of precision application techniques gives the potential to get a better result from every gramme of active ingredient in the field, and reduce the risk of any …
The promising potential of agri-tech
As the three Agri-Tech Centres come together, Phil Bicknell, their new CEO, describes what the term means and how it can help accelerate growth in UK agriculture. The importance of soil health for holistic, regenerative and sustainable farming practices is increasingly well recognised; healthy soils promote good carbon sequestration and biodiversity outcomes, and there are …
Biostimulant Building Blocks
Helping you adapt to growing uncertainty Over the past five years the potential resilience and sustainability benefits of biostimulants has captured the attention of the whole industry, becoming the fastest growing segment in ag. But with limited knowledge and experience it is no doubt daunting, and even inconceivable for some farmers, to consider how biostimulants …
Unveiling the Hidden Heroes: The Ecosystem Services Provided by Aculeate Wasps
The natural world, spanning from individual organisms to entire ecosystems, offers a wide range of functions and benefits known as ecosystem services (ESs) that significantly contribute to human well-being. These services can be broadly categorized into four types: regulating services (e.g., ecosystem process regulation), provisioning services (e.g., material outputs from ecosystems), supporting services (e.g., maintenance …
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Seaweed in agriculture
Written by Dr David Cutress: IBERS, Aberystwyth University. • Seaweeds have long had suggested benefits for agricultural use• Research suggests green seaweeds to be beneficial for soil/plant amendments and redseaweeds to have some potential for animal feeds• To be able to include at meaningful levels, the production and supply chain ofseaweeds needs to be researched …