After five years of cover crops and reduced tillage cultivations, Kent farm manager Dom Hughes reviews his experience – and how good advice has been vital to not making a mess of it. “Slowly, slowly catchee monkey” has become my mantra. This old English proverb, which is another way of saying ‘be patient’, is perhaps …
High silt content soils make for a slow drilling transition Read More »
Written by James Warne from Soil First Farming Many years of looking at soil proves to me that cultivations never improve soil structure. They may help to overcome an immediate problem – like compaction. But they are only ever a short-term fix; and not a very good one, either. Cultivations always leave some sort of …
Affinity Water has been working with local farmer, Rob Fox, to investigate the role of companion cropping on improving water quality, soil health and crop protection. Direct Driller, delves into what they’ve found from the ongoing trials. Catchment areas in the UK are largely dominated by agricultural land, which makes collaboration between water companies like …
Companion cropping in OSR appears to reduce herbicide losses to water Read More »
By Wilfred Mole, Lower Pertwood Farm, Wiltshire. The debate continues between arable farmers worldwide who feel that they should remain conventional, in the traditional sense, and a growing number of farmers who are convinced that Regenerative (“Regen”) is the way forward. The small Organic arable sector is also questioning their role, due to the fact that …
The Regen/Organic Conundrum from a Farmer’s viewpoint Read More »
Written by Harry Kamilaris from Agricarbon Soil carbon has emerged as a transformative force in agriculture, offering a solution to combat climate change while improving soil health and productivity. Agricarbon is at the forefront of soil carbon measurement, providing farmers with an accurate and easy-to-use service to measure and monitor their soil carbon stocks at …
The Transformative Power of Soil Carbon: A Case Study with Agricarbon Read More »
If ever there was a year to highlight the need for flexibility and the adoption of as many cultural controls as possible to manage weeds and diseases in winter wheat crops, this is it! The relatively mild and dry early winter led to comparatively forward stands in February. This was followed by an excessively wet …
Testing season highlights the need for well managed cultural controls Read More »
Well, it’s always interesting sitting down to write an article and thinking of things to wax lyrical about. Quite often, the farmer contributions are all about success stories! Like how to grow 12 tons per hectare of 13% milling wheat on 20 kilos of N and an application of home-brewed compost tea, how a 15-way …
Coping with the ups and downs of the farming industry necessitates being as efficient as possible, says Jeff Claydon, Suffolk arable crop producer and inventor of the Claydon Opti-Till® direct strip seeding system. The contrast between this season and last is dramatic, not just in terms of the weather but also the finances of farming. …
As margins are ever more squeezed on farm, over the last twelve months we have seen a significant increase in farmers looking for a more sustainable and cost-effective way of applying nitrogen to their land while reducing farm inputs. Fish hydrolysates are now playing a key role in that search for solutions and are proven …
Fish Hydrolysate: A new way to add traditional support to your crops Read More »
By Toby Simpson NSch @tjsimpson Cast your mind back to January 2021, that particularly cold, dark, and dreary month made infinitely worse by the fact we were in a third lockdown with no end in sight. For me this was the background to an epiphany, while sat by the fire reading through old Nuffield papers, …
