Neil White — Greenknowe Farm, Berwickshire

One of Direct Driller’s most regular farmer focus contributors (10+ issues). Farmers Weekly Arable Farmer of the Year 2023. Hosted the first Covering Soils Scotland event (May 2024). Mzuri Ambassador.

📰 Read articles by Neil White — Greenknowe Farm, Berwickshire on Direct Driller → View author archive

Profile
Farm Greenknowe Farm
Location Berwickshire, SE Scotland (Merse valley)
Area 570 acres arable
Soils Sandy loam to clay loam
Family farming since 1913
System 100% direct drill (Mzuri Pro-Til dual hopper + Stocks unit)
Award FW Arable Farmer of the Year 2023

Journey to 100% Direct Drill

  • 2016-17: good harvests but workload pressure farming solo; wanted to keep moving forward
  • Researched early DD adopters online; Mzuri kept coming up
  • Cereals 2017: asked Mzuri for Scottish demo → bought second-hand Pro-Til 3T after wheat demo into OSR stubble looked great all winter
  • Gradual transition: 20% DD / 80% ploughed (2018) → 80/20 (2021) → 100% DD
  • Ran two systems in parallel for years — yields were the same between DD and plough-based
  • “I take my hat off to those who sell the plough the day the new drill arrives, that was never my plan”

Results

  • Fuel bill and tractor hours: down ~2/3
  • Soil organic matter: up 1-2% since changing tillage
  • Soil: “more even and more resilient than they have ever been”
  • Only pre-sowing pass: straw rake to kill slugs and chit weeds
  • VR seed on all cereals and beans; VR pellets on OSR
  • Stopped insecticides on spring beans; reduced fungicide on wheat (wider Mzuri row spacing improves airflow)
  • 3 depths in one pass: beans (front leg), radish/phacelia (coulter), clover (pelleter)
  • Clover understorey trial: 2 years under wheat gave big crops, but “stupidly sprayed it off in year 3”

Appearances

Issues 7, 8, 10, 12, 16, 18, 20, 23, 25, 27, 28 + Covering Soils Scotland 2024 (host)

[Sources: dd-issue-07 through dd-covering-soils-scotland]

Issue 12 — Running Two Systems, Parallel Results (January 2021)

Neil’s Issue 12 column is essentially a set of side-by-side yield comparisons between his Mzuri strip-till establishment and his plough/combi-drilled crops — a Berwickshire take on “did the no-till actually deliver?”

  • Winter barley: direct and plough/combi both poor, ~⅔ of average; Mzuri still slightly below plough/combi — he suspects it is because barley sits at the end of his rotation
  • Spring barley (Diablo): Mzuri matched plough/combi and beat 5-year average; TGW higher on Mzuri-sown ground thanks to wider rows and better light interception
  • Spring oats (Canyon, for Quaker): Mzuri-sown out-yielded plough/combi by over 1 t/ha at a quarter of the establishment cost
  • Spring beans into overwintered stubble: “the highlight” — well above average, first-class sample
  • OSR companion crop trial: blocks of buckwheat and Berseem clover in OSR. Buckwheat established well; clover failed (suspects pre-em drift via slug pellet carrier)
  • Kit investment: ordered a tracked combine with power spreader — prioritising soil protection over mechanical cure for compaction
  • Soil testing: Solvita burst test results improving noticeably; ash from his biomass boiler applied to heavy clay patches
  • Honest admission on still using the plough in rotation: “a bit like claiming your a vegan and having meat once a month”

[Source: dd-issue-12, 2026-04-13]

Issue 14 — First Drill Into Cover Crops, and Honesty About System Failings (July 2021)

Five years into the Mzuri system and this issue marks a first: drilling directly into a cover crop. A heavy volunteer-oat cover from a wet 2020 harvest was grazed by a neighbour’s sheep over winter, limed, snowboarded, sprayed and drilled with Diablo spring barley in March.

  • Spring rape into neighbour’s cover crop: less successful — open slots, slug and beetle damage, turf folding under from cover-crop roots. “It is interesting to see the good and bad effects of cover crops first-hand and whether the cover provided a slug habitat through winter.”
  • Variable-rate seed rate introduced this year on beans, oats and barley across his variable soil types — “it seems to be worth the effort”; discovered Isobus is “not a 1 cable fits all solution”
  • Mzuri + banded fertiliser trial: ploughing + Mzuri + fertiliser produced the strongest early crop of Diablo spring malting barley; direct Mzuri with fertiliser was behind but warming up
  • Six-year Mzuri soil results: organic matter from ~3.3% to almost 4%; workability, water and machinery-carrying capacity all improved; C:N ratio good
  • Drainage lesson learned: small drainage issues allowed to become big ones — now budgeting for annual drainage work
  • Scottish politics: worried that a blanket rejection of reduced tillage by Scottish cropping-sector voices ignores the equivalent failings of plough/power-harrow/combi systems. “The plough, power harrow or combination drill system never fails, we are told. I still have that system on a tiny percentage of my ground, and it has the same problems of flooding, compaction, slugs and baked or smeared soils, so I think we must be honest about the failings of both systems.”

“If only there was a forum or magazine for such a thing?”

[Source: dd-issue-14, 2026-04-13]

Issue 16 — Six Years In, Calling for Carbon Audit Equity (January 2022)

After a better-than-expected SE Scotland harvest 2021, Neil uses this column to make his loudest political point yet on Scottish carbon auditing.

Mzuri vs plough comparison after six years

  • Pearl winter barley with the Mzuri looked the better crop in autumn but stalled in the wetter spring; the plough/combi crop overtook it (perhaps faster N access) and yielded ~0.4 t/ha higher
  • The Mzuri ground carried the sprayer and spreader 6–7 days earlier without marks
  • Margin: very slight Mzuri advantage on winter barley
  • Diablo spring barley reversed the result — direct drilled outyielded the conventional, despite looking thinner

Cover crop kept simple

A relatively cheap mix of farm-saved spring beans + phacelia + buckwheat, drilled 3 September, two depths in one pass at 12 km/h (beans 2.5″ down the front leg; phacelia and buckwheat 1″ at the coulter). Above-ground performance has “exceeded my expectations”. The first frost killed the buckwheat. Hoping a New Year hard frost will kill the beans before spring oats.

Pigeons and slug pellet variable rate

Companion cropping in OSR didn’t help yield or pigeon suppression last year — dropped this year. Working towards variable-rate slug pellets to match the variable-rate seed map (heavier areas already mapped).

The carbon-audit equity argument

After speaking at the NFU’s autumn conference on Sustainable Farming, and hosting Scotland’s Cabinet Secretary Mairi Gougeon on-farm:

“Scotland are going to have a baseline audit that gives a figure for your carbon footprint, eventually this will include biodiversity. I don’t have a problem with that as such, but every company I know which makes these calculations comes up with a very different number. So, do I get the worst figure the first year and then save the favourable one until later, showing a good improvement or start with the best and hope I’m already ahead of the game?”

He wants an internationally recognised process before farmers hand over their data, otherwise British agriculture will be set up to be branded as polluters.

[Source: dd-issue-16, 2026-04-13]

Issue 18 — Cover-Crop Validation and the 90% Direct Drill Mark (July 2022)

By summer 2022 Neil is at 90% direct drilling, with the only ploughing reserved for ~10% of fields needing drainage work or following potatoes.

Three-way American-inspired cover crop

This year’s winter cover was a deliberately simple 3-way mix: phacelia + farm-saved spring beans + buckwheat, sown 3 September one-pass at 12 km/h after wheat removal. US research persuaded him that below-ground a 3-way mix can match anything larger.

  • Buckwheat killed by frost ~1 December (perfect timing for an open Scottish spring)
  • Cold checked the beans enough to keep them manageable
  • “Roots had lots of nodules, so job done”
  • Sprayed off, hen muck spread, then Canyon oats for Quaker drilled variable-rate into the cover
  • Oats emerged well but tillered slightly less than usual — possibly the dry, possibly something from the cover; the soil structure was “like a grow bag mix”
  • Only 60 kg of bagged N added; “If the yield is good, it is something I will try again but maybe with a further reduction in applied N”

Contract drilling: trials and intercrops

A particularly interesting Hutton Institute trial for a poultry farmer growing home-grown protein in his ration — a four-species intercrop drilled in one go to be combined together: beans 3″ deep on the first pass with spring wheat either side at 1″ out the coulter, then GPS nudged between rows for peas at 1.5″ with lupins either side at 1″ on the second pass. No peas on the tramlines. Plus separate plots of each individual crop. Capping was a problem in the difficult spring. “Combining it could be the real challenge.”

NFUS open day

60 visitors in the shed and field walk. Frequent questions about glyphosate use and past mistakes. His regret: not having photographs of his earliest terrible spring barley and OSR.

Knowledge transfer must stay farmer-led

“Knowledge transfer must be run with a farmer-to-farmer focus, not just ‘experts’ or industry advisors at inflated prices. I still don’t believe we have a reliable and standard way to measure farming’s carbon footprint, but we are pushing on with grants, audits and soil testing not knowing ultimately what they hope to achieve!”

[Source: dd-issue-18, 2026-04-13]

Issue 20 — All-Direct, Doddie Tartan and the AgriScot Final (January 2023)

A celebratory column. The dry harvest has given Neil the confidence to direct drill all his winter crops at home for the first time in 2022/23 — including winter brewing barley after wheat, where a good chit was essential. He used a late straw rake as his only pre-drill machine, ran the leading leg on the Mzuri raised by 1–2 inches in most wheat fields (saving metal and fuel), and is planning to make 2023 his first 100% direct-drilled spring crop too.

AgriScot Arable Farmer of the Year — runner-up

Cajoled into entering by colleagues, Neil reached the final and finished as one of two runners-up to Colin McGregor of McGregor Farms (a Direct Driller patron). The judges’ July visit “made me look and think hard about my farm and my system, this can only be a good thing.” Reaching the final he reads as proof that direct drilling can stand up to scrutiny in the Scottish arable mainstream.

“Are we being farmed?”

A recurring Neil White political concern returns: a recent contract offer paid a premium for soft wheat grown in his system, but his suspicion is that “this is how quality assurance was first sold to us and now it’s mandatory.” He’s also wary of his Profit and Biodiversity group through Nourish Scotland — “the facilitators get the money not the participants, maybe it is us who are being farmed?”

Stubble turnips and cover crops

Stubble turnips for tack-grazed sheep had a tough year — at least half decimated by slugs, flea beetle and pigeons by the time of writing — meaning a “rather poor negotiating position” with next door’s flock. The cover crops, however, look strong: home-saved spring beans, radish, phacelia, buckwheat and clover going into Diablo malting barley.

The Doddie Foundation tartan tractor

A moving closing tribute to Doddie Weir — Scottish rugby legend, family friend and MND campaigner — who had just died. The MyName’5 Doddie tartan was designed at Greenknowe Farm by Neil’s wife’s business ScotlandShop, and is wrapped on his tractor. “It is worn by millions around the world to raise awareness of MND and will continue to be worn by my tractor for years to come. Like him it raises a smile wherever it goes. Thanks for everything Doddie.”

[Source: dd-issue-20, 2026-04-13]

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