Twin Row Maize

The concept behind this has been been thought about for a very long time, technology and a lot of trial and error is finally starting to bear fruit and at last this technology has been successfully demonstrated in England this year

Conventional maize is typically precision drilled on 30"(75cm) rows, some countries this varies from 50cm up to 90cm row widths depending on use and machinery. Row spacings have by and large been governed by header types for harvesting grain, whilst with forage maize the Kemper type header now means that row widths are governed more by sprayer and cultivation equipment wheel widths.

It is well known that Maize does not like any competition of any sort, so placing plants close together in a single row immediately forces in-row competition on the crop for light, water and nutrients. The Twin-row system negates this by splitting the single row into two rows ten inches apart, with a twenty inch gap to the next twin row. Basically, the system still utilises the standard 30" system, just modifying it so that you end up with about 25-30% more rooting space, sunlight and water availability per plant. Or, seen from another angle, 25-30% less competition from its neighbouring plants.

The video clearly shows this to good effect.

Interesting articles recently in the press.

Two landmark publications came out this last week (7th May), the fist being an article published by NASA on their predictions for global rainfall patterns in the future.The report highlights the correlations between increasing carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere and the level of rainfall across all regions of the planet.If you are farming, I thoroughly recommend that you look at this as it is going to determine what and where we grow food, in particular Brazil, Southern Africa, Northern Australia and all countries around the Mediterranean.

The article can be found here:
http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2013/may/HQ_13-119_Rainfall_Response.html

The second article of note this week was the report that Carbon Dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere had reached the symbolic figure of 400ppm, the last recorded time this level had been reached previously was 3-5 million years ago. Now on its own, this probably doesn't register to highly on the radar, however a week earlier there was another related article pointing to the fact the increasing CO2 was leading to a more acid Artic Ocean and changing the way ice and currents flow, indeed there are suggestions that polar low pressure systems are becoming more frequent as a result which in turn is causing the erratic flow of the jetstream which in turn is influencing the weather in the northern hemisphere.

This article can be found here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-22486153 whilst the article on polar lows is here: http://e360.yale.edu/feature/linking_weird_weather_to_rapid_warming_of_the_arctic/2501/

It seems that as farmers, we are going to be trying to produce food in ever changing and more erratic weather patterns as time goes on, which is going to make an event like 2012 more likely in future. In which case, we need to become better adapted to producing food in these scenarios, as the current financial risk vs reward ratio is unsustainable in its current guise of large corporates profiteering excessively in relation to the primary producers.

Late Winter update?...Should be spring!

So here we are at the end of the first week of April and it is still freezing cold, the ground is drying out incredibly quickly with the biting easterly winds and everyone is asking when will spring arrive!

Winter wheat crops generally look hammered, thin and blue in colour at this time, with most fields having bare patches in them. What has been so encouraging from my point of view has been the fact that most of my autumn drilled cereals are still in the field, they haven't succumbed to the unrelenting rain and now cold. I say most, but not all. One variety in particular has faired poorly in two different areas, one near Lands End, the other near Holsworthy. One was drilled early, the other later, but not stupidly late given where it is. Both on lighter ground. Both drilled with tine type drills, one a min till type, the other a direct type. It looks like the soils at drilling time weren't dusty dry and as a result the tines have smeared a groove through the soil, which has not allowed any real root development to take place and in the direct drilling case, the whole lot succumbed to the elements. What is interesting is that other varieties drilled in the same manner have survived, whilst those drilled with a combination drill have flourished and generally look very good.

Istabraq and its offspring Avatar both look good, both varieties that like the late drilling slot, have high specific weights and very good fusarium scores. Claire too looks very good and there are many a grower down here who are growing it and thanking their lucky stars that they have probably the easiest and most farmer friendly variety out there on farm, as that which didn't get drilled last Autumn has been going in right up till mid March without any problems.

Slugs have been the bane of most farmers this year, Oilseed rape has been hammered, some has been redrilled late in the autumn to winter oats, only for that too to have been grazed right out too. The early sown stuff put down with a subsoiler leg has been good, simple method and the seed wasn't put too deep, the ridges created mini microclimates and enabled the seedlings to get established. The stuff planted in to a sumo'd field conventionally got nailed, my feeling is the disc type drill put the seed too deep initially and the slugs had a field day. Wheat too has  been grazed to nothing despite repeated slug pelleting, the very wet and mild conditions up to January providing ideal conditions for them.

Paradoxically, we find ourselves now in a mini drought situation, grass is being scorched to nothing in the cold biting artic conditions that have prevailed for the last 6 weeks nearly, the last 3 weeks have seen cold frosty conditions daily with soil temperatures hovering around 2C, far from ideal to generate any growth. Late drilled wheat (Mid to Late February) is only now just emerging 5 weeks post planting.

The are a large number of farmers who are fast running out of forage of any kind, most first cut silage a have been used, second cuts are generally very dry and poor quality due to their cutting being delayed by last summers rains, third cut generally is wet, acidic and not very good either. Add to this a generally very poor quality whole crop cereals, maize yields averaging about 6-8 tons/ac, less than half what you would normally expect, low quality, stunted grazed forages like turnips and kale due to little sunshine and you can appreciate the perfect storm scenario many find themselves in along with the cost of bought in feed stuffs. Most dairy farmers are feeding more in terms of inputs to the cows than they would normally do, whilst the cows are struggling to perform as they should. The common voiced thread is 'feeding for 30, but only getting 27 out of them' even though the 'paper' forage tests suggest better quality than what is happening in reality. Have heard cases of silage values under wet analysis coming back 30% less in ME than NIRS tests.

May we soon have some warm weather so the crops start growing and we can get the maize in the ground!