Joe Stanley, Allerton Project and Graham Redman, The Andersons Centre Joe Stanley Since 2017, the Allerton Project has been conducting a nationally significant long-term rotational field trial in partnership with Syngenta across five fields of our heavy-land site. The initial five-year phase of the trial, as outlined in the June 2023 issue of Direct Driller, …
Revisiting the Syngenta Conservation Agriculture Project. Read More »
Cutting per-tonne costs, boosting yields, maximising income and building healthier soils; these should be key priorities given the challenges facing the farming sector, says Jeff Claydon, Suffolk arable farmer and inventor of the Claydon Opti-Till® direct seeding system. 25 May 2025 Hanslope series clay certainly brings significant challenges and makes timeliness essential, but this spring …
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 …
By Anna Woodley from Trinity AgTech For generations, farmers have been finely tuned to the physical and financial cycles of their land – balancing input costs with yield, timing the market, and managing unpredictable weather. The ability to manage complexity and make it pay is a defining skill of British agriculture. But in a rapidly …
June 2025 It has been over a year since my last DD article and rather a lot has happened in that time which is affecting all businesses and especially farming. I think there are opportunities out there if you are prepared to take on the challenge but there is a lot of uncertainty in the …
With harvest well under way in parts of the country we, once again, are thinking about autumn establishment. With commodity prices under pressure, and support measures falling away, what are you doing to cut cost and attempt to maintain profitability. Being a soil consultant, I am always going to argue that the soil is the …
Written by James Warne With zero-till the answer is probably never. The reason behind the question is that once again seed drills have been out in the field before the soil conditions are suitable. Putting seed into the ground and getting it to emerge consistently and evenly is all about seed to soil contact, and …
As farmers worldwide face the dual challenges of maintaining productivity while transitioning to more sustainable practices, SoilPoint has emerged as a leading innovator in the field of soil health and regenerative agriculture, transforming agricultural practices across the UK and beyond, helping ensure a sustainable future for farming and food security. Who is SoilPoint? SoilPoint Humic …
Let’s be honest — there’s hardly a farmer in Britain today who doesn’t feel like they’re paddling upstream. Whether it’s arable, livestock, dairy, or horticulture, the pressures are coming thick and fast. Soaring input costs, labour shortages, unforeseen legislative changes, wild swings in the weather, and post-Brexit market uncertainty are combining into something many are …
For a generation, farmers have taken for granted their most valuable resource, often considering it to be simply ‘dirt’. The focus has been on force-feeding the crop and beating the soil into submission, driven by an ethos of yield over profit, with little respect for the aftermath. Inputs for many have typically increased since the …
