Wheat varieties in a bearish market......Choices for 2014/15 season.

With winter barley yields proving to be consistent and high this season, questions about the cost of wheat production this season are rearing themselves daily. With on farm prices off the combine being touted at less than £120/ton, some serious head scratching is taking place in the south west as to what to plant this coming season.

What has been noticeable this season is the wet weather. Right from the outset, October through to May was wet and very mild, record storm surges, high winds, day after day with only a few days respite between storms to get the late planted crops in (after maize, potatoes). The early drilled fields got a flying start and where possible had to have a few sprays of insecticide to keep the aphids off. Seed dressed with Deter had enough protection early on, but this soon faded with the weather onslaught.

With wet mild weather, early ingress of disease was inevitable with Septoria levels in the early new year being high, along with a lot of yellow rust in susceptible varieties. With the ground being so wet and soils relatively warm, plants continued to produce biomass, but not much root as the soils were waterlogged. This continued all the way up till May when the rain abated and temperatures climbed. This was ideal conditions for maize establishment, but some wheats with small root systems started to show signs of strain.

The very mild and wet winter has had another significant effect on winter barley and wheat, namely Take-All. In Lattitude seed treated crops, drilled in early October, there still has been crop damage, that drilled in late September is worse, particularly in fields that weren't rolled post drilling. I have seen Take-All effects in winter barley as bad as in wheat, even barley drilled late October down in Cornwall. In some wheat crops that were drilled as second wheats early (late September) through into the middle of October, it is possible to see which are the early drilled and those that went in last, purely by the degree of Take-All infection in the fields. In other instances, over-yeared seed from 2012 that only had single purpose dressing, was planted in fields following spring barley, purely due to the results of cropping rotation mayhem in 2012, with disastrous results being seen now. I have seen instances of Take-All symptoms in winter barley following winter oats following wheat too, some a complete right-off.

This year, the two cereal demonstration sites were drilled at quite different times, the site at Bude went in early, 25th September, into ideal seedbed conditions. Some varieties have two plots looking at over-yeared seed, a product of the very wet autumn of 2012 when a lot of seed never got planted. Given the issues of 2012, it is hardly surprising that farmers were keen to get the winter crops in early in 2013 to avoid the same issues again. The Tregony site however was opposite, originally planned to go in October, weeks went by with conditions hopeless, until a little window opened the last week of November that allowed the plots to be sown 2nd December. The mild weather definitely helped this lot survive, although some varieties were really up against it and those plots looked appallingly thin. This field was sprayed with Multimax at the earliest opportunity (phosphite and potash foliar feed) to stimulate root and shoot development, which had the desired effect and thickened the plots up well.

Tregony demonstration site mid July.

Bude demonstration site 23rd May with untreated area showing yellow rust in susceptible varieties.

Winter Barley plots at Tregony, Matros in foreground, then Harlequin, Cadillac, California. Matros in rest of field. This field followed winter wheat and suffered some Take-All effects.

In the previous years (2012 and 2013) Avatar winter wheat has been the top yielding variety at both sites, in early and late drilling slots, wet year and dry year. A son of Istabraq and the top perfuming variety in Ireland and Scotland, it has proved itself as a big yielder in this maritime climate of the south west. A variety that was half a percentage point off going on the HGCA recommended list in 2012, it is a very reliable and farmer friendly variety. In trials at Exeter going back to 2008, it has always been in the top 5 in terms of outright performance and across a wide range of sites in the HGCA trials system it performed well. It was the variety that caught my eye back in 2009 at Exeter, I started including it in farm trials in 2010 and it has proven a very consistent and forgiving variety. planted early, it doesn't get too proud and full of disease like Istabraq can (thats why its always advised to plant Istabraq late down here, possibly the best wheat variety after maize), planted late (end of February, it has amazing tillering capacity and a fantastic yield potential. I have a case of it being planted the 19th of March this year and it has flowered and produced a great crop. That is nearly as forgiving as Claire! Due to it's high tillering capacity, it lends itself to the Claydon system of minimum tillage, as can be seen below.

Avatar drilled in November with a Claydon drill, near Crediton.

Avatar in a field thats been continuous wheat for 30 years, looking fabulous. Drilled at 230 seeds/sqm in late mid September 2013.

Avatar produces a good bright sample with a high specific weight.

Since starting this we have now harvested about 400acs of wheats, predominantly Istabraq and Avatar. Yields for Istabraq are in the 3.75t/ac range with a good specific weight, with Avatar in second wheat/continuos wheat slots doing the same and between 3.8 and 4.25t/ac in the 1st wheat slots, again with very good specific weights. There are are a few results that I am waiting on from the Crediton and Truro areas, but at the minute yields are promising for a difficult year.

I am hoping we will have the trial plots harvested in the near future which will then give us an indication of where the new varieties like Zulu, Panacea, Evolution and Revelation sit in the mix. Revelation does look promising at the minute, Panacea may surprise with its yield too.

More to follow soon.

Maize Planting Checklist 2014

So, as we stand on the brink of planting, here are 10 practical things to watch out for if you are having a contractor plant your maize crop for you. All too often when walking fields I come across the signs that not all planters are doing the job they should be, namely planting seed at a uniform depth, with nice even spacings between plants and with plants growing at the same speed.

The field has been cultivated well, there's a lovely seedbed just waiting to be drilled and you have called the contractor and the seed and fertiliser is in the field waiting to go. So here's a few things to look out for to make sure the drill is fit for purpose to do your job. Don't just assume because he has just finished drilling 40 hectares for your neighbour everything is hunky-dory!

1. Whilst the tractor is standing with the drill in the air, check the machine is level with the rear axle of the tractor on the link arms. You won't believe how many times I find machines hooked up to tractors that aren't level.

2. If the drill is an Accord/Kvernland type that has a shoe/coulter on each planter unit that creates the slot into which the seed is placed, have a look at the bases to make sure there is still plenty of 'meat' on the shoes and that they aren't worn down to the extent the seed pipe is visible. This is important, because if the plates are very worn, the shoe tends to smear, rather than cut a slot for the seed to drop into. Also, the reduced clearance tends to cause the seed to bounce more and get dragged by the body more leading to bunching and irregular planting depth.

3. If you are putting placement fertiliser down like DAP/MAP, are these shoes all the same depth?

4. When the drill is lowered to the ground to load the seed hoppers, did the depth control wheels hit the ground at the same time (if the machine is level behind the tractor)? If the depth wheels are an inch out, you can guarantee the outside planter boxes are going to placing seed an inch plus deeper than the boxes on the opposite side, worse the wider the machine is. You can tell this post emergence when there are 2-4 rows that are later emerging than the rest every 6 rows across the field (if an 8 row planter).

5. Once the drill hoppers are full and ready to go, test to see if the seed and fertiliser is flowing evenly out of all the pipes. Clear plastic containers you get from Indian/Chinese take-aways are really useful to catch seed and fertiliser when doing this test so you don't waste anything. Quite often, especially after the machine has done a fair acreage, DAP powder can bind to the inside of the pipes causing a constriction thereby reducing the amount flowing down the pipes. (or if the machine has been put away without cleaning them out at the end of the previous season!). This will cause striping where you get a line, or lines where the plants are paler than the rest.

6. Check the seed rate! There is nothing worse if you are growing a crop of maize for a specific use, like grain for crimping or combining where you plant at a lower seed rate than forage maize and you find out post event that the seed rate is too high, or too low. It really does affect yield.

Satisfied the drill is ready to go, then let him line up and make a start.

7. As the machine is going along, walk alongside at look at the headstock on the planter. If the machine is 'leaning' forward, or backward, its wrong. Forward leaning generally leads to the placement fertiliser being put too deep, backwards and its too shallow (you might even see granules on the surface). Forward leaning tends to also lift the press wheels at the back so the seed doesn't get good contact with the soil around it.  Backward leaning and the seed could be going too deep, or too shallow and it doesn't get enough soil covering it.

8. Are the wheel eradicator tines actually doing what they are supposed to, taking out the tractor wheel marks and loosening the soil where the tractor has just driven?

9. Check the depth of the seed across the whole drill width by scraping away the soil and looking in each row for the seeds. The seed dressing is bright pink or red for a reason, it makes them very easy to find. If you cannot find them, stop the planter and check why not. When I check, I clear about 2 meters in each row as this allows me to check depth, spacing and if the machine calibrated properly.
If the speed is right, the seed placement should be right with little bunching evident. I know some of the new drills can go quite fast and still be very accurate, however the older ones can't.

10. After a few bouts, check the overlap/underlap on the outside rows. If the bout markers aren't right, then the sprayer is not going to do its job correctly either. It looks really bad when there is a nice weedy path between every sprayer bout width, or theres a stunted crop where its had a double dose of herbicide.

Anyone can grow maize, but it takes a real effort to grow a great crop of maize as it is a lazy plant, it will show up every deficiency, fault and inconsistency in the field.

If the contractor does a good job, pay him promptly!

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!

Weather issues!

Well most of us have and are having to deal with weather issues, most likely for the next 18 months as the after effects of this years weather ease their way through the next cropping year. What do I mean by this, well it matters little what crop you are growing, whether grass or arable, compaction and subsoil damage from stock and machinery will have been considerable this year and these are very noticeable in autumn sown crops already this year and will be evident in grass growth rates in the spring.

About 40% of autumn crops are in the ground down here in the Southwest, a large amount of grass reseeding never got done because the ground conditions were poor too and any Oilseed Rape that was drilled has sustained a prolonged spell of attack from slugs and what is left is now being piled into by pigeons en masse!

To top it all, spring cereal options are now difficult with the chronic lack of spring cereal seed available.  I am not panicking yet as I think there will be seed coming available after new year that has been ordered on the proviso the wheat that was planned is not drilled. I know a lot will say that because the ground is now so wet, there is no chance in hell of it being dry enough to drill by the beginning of February. I remember clearly the statements earlier in 2012 about it taking years to recover the subsurface moisture deficits in much of England due the extreme drought conditions, look where we are now 7 months down the track. If we get this very cold weather that some forecasters are predicting, winter ploughing and late drilling winter wheat is still an option, especially any varieties with Claire in their parentage. Last year we were drilling Istabraq on ground at 800ft on the 1st of March and it still yielded more than all the earlier drilled stuff.

So don't panic, there is time yet still to get winter wheat in the ground, we still have a lot of weather to go through before spring and hopefully that which is planted will have a deep enough root system to survive while the cold weather kills off the slug problem and does something to remedy the soil structure issues. Just remember to raise the drilling rates up towards the 450 seeds/sqm level to account for higher seed mortality and reduced tiller numbers and don't drill too deep!

Maize thoughts

I know a lot of maize growers this year are probably thinking about whether it is the crop they should be growing, or thinking about reducing their acreage grown, or thinking why they decided to grow it in the first place. Yes it has been a really difficult year for maize growers, certainly down here in the south west, but then looking at wheat whole crop results and seeing starch levels down as low as 12%, you question the wisdom of relying on this as a starch source too. The same rules that apply to getting a good crop of wheat apply to growing a good crop of maize, namely good seedbeds, the right fertility, the right field aspect and a whole lot of SUNSHINE! Without the later, nothing grows, as can be seen with grass growth as well this year.

The vital thing now when looking at harvesting maize is to make sure the crop is as fit as possible before going into the clamp, cutting maize below 20% DM is really asking for a lot of trouble when it comes to be fed, the acid loading from the sap and sugars that convert into acid during the fermentation process will be off the richter scale, making for some very unhappy animals that are forced to eat it. Not to mention the potential environmental concerns of trying to control and store, dispose of all the effluent that is likely to pour out the bottom of the clamp.

A crop that has been re-drilled, showing the most yellow cob with the most starch, though only at about 20%DM.  The re-drilled stuff has a long way to go before it's ready to be ensiled.

A really good crop of maize (for this year), but at least 10 days away from being ready to cut. Taking this early will decimate all the hard work and add to the woes of trying to feed it successfully this coming winter.

This crop was at 30% DM, can see the die back in the plants, the sheaves on the cobs have started to brown off and the grains were firm with little milk in them. It may only be an 8 ton crop, but at least all of it will be utilisable. The cows will milk better off this than the crop above if ensiled at this stage.

It's despairing when you see fields as wet as this, this late in the year, the temptation is so strong to go and get the crop on a dryish day, but patience will give a better result.

 Maize under plastic this year seems to have been very variable, it certainly isn't the magic bullet to growing good maize, some very early drilled stuff rotted under the sheets, other stuff never got going as the soil temperatures were too low for adequate mineralisation of nutrients to take place. Those that planted late April and into May however did get some reasonable crops, however due to the low levels of sunlight, they have faced a nightmare trying to cut the crops without dragging up big pieces of plastic into the foragers as there hasn't been enough sunlight for it all to break down.

There are some things we can do however to improve the agronomy aspect of growing maize here in this part of the world. The issue is we have to get contractors and growers likewise to take it forward, as  contractors are heavily invested in the status quo at present.

Inter-row cultivation with something like this in the picture link below is what I have used very successfully in Zimbabwe in a pre-post-emergence herbicide application situation up to about 6 leaf stage. It is very useful where the soil has capped off after a heavy downpour and the soil has slumped a bit, destroys any young weeds, aerates the soil and can be configured to through the soil towards the plants, or into the middle of the row. It works tremendously well in combination with a post emergence fertiliser application as you can 'brush' the nitrogen in towards the roots, making the uptake and utilisation far better. The other beauty of these machines is they are light and don't require a lot of horsepower (and weight) to pull them.
http://www.oliverdahlman.com/sitebuilder/images/p114-600x289.jpg

Strip tillage / Rip-on-row tillage is another way we can get maize established, a very well documented and proven form of growing maize in both the southern hemisphere as well as the USA is slowly making an appearance here in the UK, but the machinery looks really expensive and requires a lot of horsepower to pull. There are simpler and less costly manufacturers about.
http://www.seeddaily.com/reports/Strip_till_improves_nutrient_uptake_and_yield_999.html

We also need to look at these types of planters to maximise sunlight availability per plant, whilst maximising nutrient uptake too. I saw one of these in the Freestate last December and the maize planted this way was noticeable healthier, further forward with thicker stems than that drilled conventionally. The farmer reckoned he was seeing a least a 10% grain yield advantage, in some cases up to 20% or more. I know Great-plains (Simba) have a machine here in UK, they have done some work with it this year, but I haven't yet been able to see how well it went. The link below is the machine I saw.
http://www.carrotech.co.za/twin-row/a-monosem-6x2-twin-row-planter-sold-in-mpumalanga-408

All food for thought.

Wheat Demo Plots 2012

The two sites, one at Tregony and the other at Bude had very contrasting starts this last season.

Tregony followed Winter Oats and was drilled by the 10th October in relatively good conditions at a seed rate of 64kg/ac (158kg/Ha) and had a good start with the mild and albeit wet conditions through till Christmas. Bude on the other hand followed grain maize in part of an oilseed rape field, which came off mid October. However, the heavens then opened and the stova on the surface acted as a lovely mulch retaining all this moisture. The situation was worsened by the fact that a Simba cultipress had disced the stalks just after cutting with the result the land became like a sponge and nothing could move on it till we got a lucky break mid November when we managed to get a plough in and sowed the plots right behind using a light tractor with a 3m triple K type cultivator and air drill. Even so, there were wet areas where we had to lift the implement out of the ground almost in order to get through without getting stuck.

The above photo shows the thin looking Stigg (more brown than green) with JB Diego (New seed) on the left of the dividing strip and farm-saved JB Diego on the right. Ignore the very green headland which is Nickerson Original Invicta seed, look closely at the establishment of the JB Diego. The new seed has established far better with a denser plant number, is more vigorous in its growth at this early stage, something that would continue right through the plots lifespan.

Edgar, a new variety bred by Limagrain in Germany and a useful Group 1 milling variety was in the demo to see how well it might fair down in wet and wild Cornwall. It was the greenest all through winter, well established and very clean. It has a disease rating similar to Alchemy with similar yield. It is the very dark green plot, with Solstice on it's left and Exsept on it's right and Crusoe, a new group 1 in the foreground. The photo below shows the difference between Invicta and Alchemy coming through the winter, Invicta had much more biomass and leaf area, Alchemy much more prone and prostrate.

The three plots visible below are left to right Istabraq (low vigour seed and looking thin), Gravitas and Horatio to right of the central divide and Avatar below it. Gravitas had a low Thousand Grain Weight TGW, so looks very thick, Horatio looked well and green through out the winter. Avatar is just visible to the right of the Horatio.

The Bude plots by contrast looked quite rough given the way it was mauled in.

The late planting proves that sowing low vigour seed is not a good idea! It was a struggle to do plant counts in the Istabraq plot, Stigg also was not looking happy, so can safely say this is not a variety to drill late!

However, by the end of March they had started to pull together remarkably well. The Edgar still looking very green compared to all the rest as can be seen below.

By May, the Istabraq plot that had looked bare looked like this, a transformation, as it tillered like mad with some plants having 20 plus tillers. This was really surprising as this would have been ploughed in in normal circumstances to establish a spring crop.

By May, the Edgar was showing just what a huge plant relative to everything else it is, very noticeable with the thick wide chord leaves. This photo I took up at Bury St Edmunds shows this clearly.

I held two open days this year at both venues, the main ones being the 5th and 12th of July, first at Bude, then Tregony. The Bude day was well attended with 60 people attending during the course of the day to look at the Wheat and Oilseed Rape plots. Alastair Moore, Nickerson Sales Director was in attendance and gave everyone a frank and well appreciated appraisal of what was happening with the varieties, as well as in the wider grain areas to the north. It was really useful having a large scale cereal growers' perspective on the risk versus reward of varieties, how spray costs this year were making such a dent in farm budgets and what the wet weather was doing to potential yield estimates. 

Finally, on the last day of August, we managed to harvest/salvage the wheat plots at Bude, with the ones at Tregony done a week later. Here are the videos of both demo plots just prior to them being cut, this gives you a fairly accurate idea of how well these varieties stood up to this years conditions.

I am trying to get the results into a format I can post on here, so far it is not like excel or pdf files!

Playing Russian Roulette

For a fortunate few, Harvest 2012 is drawing to a protracted and very difficult close, certainly this is a year that we aren't going to forget in a hurry!

It has been a revelation this year, a 'shake out' year as one of our breeders described it, as some serious issues that potentially threaten wheat breeding program's are starting to emerge with some very serious consequences for UK farming.

In the past some breeding program's have focused on genetic resistance to regular disease pressures, septoria tritici being the main one, with other traits being bolted on. Some other breeders have been focusing on all out yield, regardless of how genetically strong these varieties were, their consensus being that disease risk could be managed by chemistry tailored to curb disease outbreaks. Barn filling varieties with poor to average disease traits proliferated as farmers bought into the idea that chemistry could solve all disease problems. As with anything in nature, disease pressures and mutations give rise to new challenges. Single gene resistance to disease instead of dual, or multiple gene resistance is easier to breed into new varieties and allows quick turn around from lab to field. As a consequence we are now seeing multiple incidences of varieties succumbing  to Yellow Rust and Brown Rust strains that are evolving, varieties that have only just been registered on the HGCA recommended lists, with the resultant increase in usage of full blown ag-chem programs to try and control these issues.

Throw into this mix one of the wettest growing seasons, especially from pre flowering all the way to harvest with low solar energy levels, high humidity and very damp soil conditions and you have a perfect storm scenario for a whole host of new diseases to make their presence felt too, especially Fusarium which has quite literally sucked all yield out of wheats this year, apart from those like Istabraq that has not suffered as much and is still producing a reasonable sample.

A common theme I am hearing on farm is a new level of questioning with regard to ag-chem inputs, how expensive this last season has been to get a crop that basically isn't near covering costs. It's is interesting to note how some of these chemistry suppliers have gone from small scale operations to giants in the industry in a very short period of time, considering how long the 'green revolution' in agriculture has been going on for. In a very short time span, farmers have seen their supply base of agricultural chemicals diminish considerably down to just a handful of players in the market, with the agronomy angle reduced even further and geared almost exclusively to structured spray programs. In a wet year like this last one, total reliance on sprays to control disease has been severely tested and the basic fundamentals of genetic resistance and a variety's ability to cope under stress have been fully on display. Some have coped and a lot have not.

Soil science, I would say is one of the most important factors governing yield, has been largely forgotten, farmers have devolved responsibility in many areas to their ag-chem supplier and crop walkers who supposedly are more knowledgeable in maximising yields and thus returns on their behalf. The knowledge gap on farm has been further diminished as a result of squeezed margins in the 'naughties' that lead to farmers farming more acres with less personnel and thus being more time restricted to chase knowledge in this regard. Universities and Agricultural Colleges too reduced the soil science input and concentrated more on the chemistry and machinery aspects of tillage, horsepower and technology as soil science generally was considered boring by most students. How many modern day farmers really understand and know what is going on in their soils?

A common theme I hear on farm is this; "why is it that with all your new fancy varieties you are breeding I am still only getting the yields we were getting 10 years ago"? Well, this time I heard an answer that came from a soil specialist company that has been growing a database on soils across the UK for the last 10 plus years and what he said was scary. The basis of it is this, pure arable farmers have been depleting the soil organic matter for so long with simple cereal and rape rotations that in some areas these levels are so low as to be irreplaceable, the soils have had all the life sucked out of them and as a result they physically are unable to provide the growing crops with the nutrients to attain their genetic potential.

It really has been noticeable in fields this year, those with good organic matter, good structure, good nutrient status have still delivered a reasonable yield and machinery has still been able to travel at critical times without leaving 3ft deep ruts. A farmer I know in Wiltshire has been chopping his straw for 10 years now, been applying copious amounts of compost and maintaining his lime and nutrient status with almost religious zeal. On very heavy clay over chalk, he has managed to keep going during harvest when his neighbours were getting stuck, his fields have a natural 'sponginess' to them as you walk them with very few areas of standing water in any of them, whilst neighbours have had 6" across whole fields of standing water for long periods of time. When you look where the combine has been traveling, there are no deep ruts, look over the hedge and it looks like a battlefield.

The genetic potential of some of the older wheat varieties like Einstein is well in excess of 25t/ha, we know from data attained in New Zealand these varieties are currently doing 18t/ha on farm in places consistently where the fertility of the soils has been maintained and the soils well managed in terms of rotation, organic manure levels, trace element replacement and most importantly, soil structure. These farmers have good rotations with break crops designed to replace organic matter and recharge the soil nutrient levels, instead of relying on stuff out of a bag. UK farmers in the main have not been doing this and yield increases have largely flatlined.

We need a radicle rethink in how we manage crop rotations, increase soil organic matter levels, improve soil structure and rejuvinate trace element levels. We need to sometimes stop and think; the soils we are farming are the product of millions of years in the making, yet with our modern cropping methods we are depleting their ability to produce the very food that our growing populations will need in the future.

How are the future generations of young farmers going to produce a decent crop that provides an economic return if the very medium needed to grow it is barren? Those who think GM will gallantly ride to the rescue are sadly going to be disappointed because the focus in GM at present is geared towards mainly chemistry, rather than soils.

The last 5 years have in the main been benign to cereal varieties, yes there has been pressure from disease, but the weaker ones were still able to deliver a credible yield with a lot of ag-chem help. This year we hit chamber six and it has blown a huge hole in many a bottom line  Lets hope this year the HGCA clamps down on low disease threshold varieties whose presence on the list now is very questionable and we move away from 'spray and weigh' varieties.

A little glimmer of light amongst a tale of woe.

Speak to many westcountry farmers and the opinion is the same, we have never seen a 'summer' like this one, in fact the whole year has been pretty much up the spout with no let up in difficult conditions.

With harvest struggling on and the results looking far from brilliant so far, it is great to hear a success story, well success in part anyway. A while ago I put a short clip up on youtube where our Sales Director Alastair Moore and I were looking at the ins and outs of establishing Oilseed rape, the link to the clip is down below. Our Rape breeder has been saying for years that canopy management, establishment and nitrogen influence final yields much more so than the individual variety that are ranked on the HGCA 'descriptive' list (I call it descriptive, because some of the LSD numbers are so far out so as to make the results statistically null and void). We get shoehorned into chosing varieties according to their results on this list, which incidently through the way the data is gathered is automatically selecting for taller and later maturing varieties, not ideal given the conditions this year!

Last summer a variety called Artoga, bred by Limagrain, started to raise it's profile because it was doing stunningly well in large parts of Europe and was one of only a few varieties that proved it could survive bitterly cold conditions and produce a crop that doesn't readily shatter at harvest time. I persuaded a few of my customers to try it and lo and behold it does what it says on the can! One of my customers on really wet heavy and very marginal soils on the cornish border put some in with a Sumo, very late (late September) and although we had a mild autumn, the fact we had so much rain drowned quite a bit of it where water pooled and sat from November through till March. However, on the one field that is south facing and reasonably well drained it was stonkingly good. Considering as well that it didn't have an autumn herbicide, that it only had one fungicide spray during it whole lifetime, to end up with an average yield well over 1ton/ac is encouraging, given that some crops that have had everything thrown at them are only doing 1.5t/ac. To appreciate how much abuse it had, it was dessicated and then left a good 3 weeks enduring torrential rain and thunderstorms, with long spells and damp mizzle thrown in as well, followed by bursts of very steamy hot weather before the combine managed to get to it last weekend (11th August). The grower fearing the worst gingerly started cutting thinking that most of the seed would have dropped out, or worse would start shedding from the vibration of the cutter bar on the combine. I am happy to report his worries were unfounded; no lodging, no cutterbar losses, no shedding! 

Elsewhere we are seeing yields consinstently in the 1.55-1.8t/ac range down here, which given the conditions and the season is quite encouraging and certainly on a par or exceeding the yields of the high ranking varieties on the HGCA list. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VsNHjSykIwM&list=UUCuUvslFtDuEj6bQPEOHIxA&index=4&feature=plcp

At last something that backs up what I have been saying for a long time.

There is a lot of marketing hype that gets printed in the popular farming press, but I have to say this is one of the first articles I have read that talks common sense and puts the whole economic perspective of dairy farming in a neat concise article. It is something Simon Broddle of Nickersons has been saying too about over leafy, young, watery grass types that are being stuffed in grass mixes. They are out of balance with the animals needs, they may analyse well in a lab, but more often than not I am coming up against a common theme of the forages not feeding as well as they analyse.

Add to this the ever increasing issue we are brewing up in our soils highlighted here in easy to understand language, I hope that producers start looking at their soils in the manner they should be, as I have already highlighted in a previous post.

http://www.farmersguardian.com/home/livestock/livestock-news/silage-making-approach-re-think-needed-to-boost-dairy-farm-profits/46284.article#.T5hXUu3omdA.google

An example of a beautifully balanced sward, Nickerson Blue Circle.

Farmers Guardian article December 2011

Taking a 'holistic' approach to dairy management is allowing better returns to be made.

Growing a specialist variety of grain maize , as well as lucerne and grass and managing it according to specific advice from leading forage experts Nickerson Direct has resulted in North Cornwall farmers Michael and Anthony Grills being able to consolidate and expand their dairy enterprise even in the face of price adversity.

Continuing pressure on the dairy industry has encouraged Michael and Anthony to focus on increasing efficiency and cost-effectiveness over the last few years, during which they have expanded their dairy business from 250 to 320 cows, with the eventual aim of reaching 500. They have also implemented major advances in genetics and nutrition, reduced costs, improved attention to detail and increased profitability.

Until 2009, cropping at West Trelay Farm, Marhamchurch included 60-80 acres of forage maize, which was included in the ration at the rate of one part to two parts grass silage. However, the Grills found it difficult to achieve consistently good results from forage maize and variability in the clamp made correct rationing difficult. Typical butterfat levels struggled to get to 4% on the wheat and barley mix as a starch source along with forage maize, which when on a cheese contract is costly.

In early 2009, Nickerson Direct Seed Specialist Simon Montgomery suggested that Michael and Anthony include grain maize with the forage maize as an additional energy source to supplement grass silage, its higher energy/starch content significantly improving milking performance and making the ration easier to manage throughout the year.

The initial crop produced an average of 5 tonnes per acre of grain which was put into the clamp for £68/t, making it very cost-effective. The maize fed tremendously well, with average butterfat content increasing from 3.98% to a maximum of 4.54% during the winter and never dropping below 4.2% the following summer, while protein remained at 3.18-3.21% throughout. The resulting increase in the quality of the milk, all of it contracted to Dairy Crest for cheese production, netted the Grills a 1p/litre quality premium worth £25,000 per year.

It was so successful that in 2010 they substituted the area of forage maize for grain maize, drilling 90 acres of Lorado between 18th and 21st April. The crop established quickly in favourable conditions, grew consistently throughout the season despite being subjected to severe drought stress and in terms of maturity behaved more like a Group 9 than its official NIAB Group 7 rating would suggest with harvest completed by 17th October and averaging a respectable 4.5 -5 t/ac in yield.

This year, the area was increased further, with a number of fields being 3rd year grain maize. 2011 started off far drier than 2010, with the crop being planted on the 14th and 15th April in ideal conditions. What was startling though on the light ground was how much moisture had been retained by the 2 previous years mulched stalks, allowing easy seed bed preparation and perfect planting conditions giving a very even plant establishment, something others struggled with this year. Herbicide applications also worked well. Even with the extremes of weather this year, first hot and dry, then cold and dry, followed by cool windy and wet conditions from 15th June onwards, the crop looked good.

By the 11th October the crop was ready to harvest, even after the poor growing conditions this year, with contractor Phil Strout combining 4 - 5 tonnes per acre (at 30-34% moisture) of what Anthony Grills describes as ‘a wonderful product, like gold dust’, although he acknowledges that their location on relatively dry ground in North Cornwall favours the crop. The fact that Lorado dries down quickly, right to the base of the kernel, 'enables us to put it through the crimper efficiently, producing a gritty flour type product, even though we are adding water with the acid type preservative, which as a result has increased surface area allowing easy digestion in the cows' gut. We're also getting better protein values from the maize as a result of using this method. In doing so we are reducing the overall acid loading on the cows digestive system, which with good quality grass silage is making a noticeable difference'.

After appraising and careful consideration with Simon, a trial field of Lucerne was planted in one of the drier fields 'to see what happens'. Simon's past experience of growing Lucerne in Zimbabwe helped in getting a fantastic establishment in difficult dry conditions. The first cut was made mid July, being left to wilt for 4 days with one turning with an old Vicon Acrobat doing the job very well without losing the leaf, before row up and baling. The Lucerne was chopped as being baled, resulting in very dense, tightly packed bales which had an additional layer of plastic to stop any 'porcupine effect'. The resultant forage has surpassed expectations. The second cut in early September was done the same way and has analysed equally well, yielding similarly at 8 600kg bales per acre. Next year, four cuts should be easily achievable.

                                               Sowing Lucerne near Bude, 15th April 2011

                                                 Establishment is everything with lucerne.

                                   Cutting and wilting properly, without loosing the leaves is critical
The inclusion of 1.5 kg per cow of Lucerne in the diet has raised protein levels from 3.18 to 3.35%. It has also allowed the removal 0.25kg per cow of soya from the ration, saving over £900/month in bought in soya cost. It has also helped boost butterfat levels which are now up to 4.64% in cows producing 10,000 litres of milk. The milk from forage figure is now standing at 4500 litres, from grazed grass and grass silage only, as the grain maize is treated as a concentrate.

What is noticeable too is how cow health is improving. Cows are very 'on the go'; alert, but contented and relaxed looking when you study them, they do not look tired and lethargic. They are showing better bulling signs and better holding post AI. As a result the cull cow numbers have reduced, calving index is improving, there is now a surplus of heifers being reared which is providing another good revenue stream to the business.

Soil management has also been appraised, some time ago soil conditioning fertilisers became part of the crop fertilising regime, recently the inclusion of 'bugs' into the slurry towers is enhancing nitrogen values by 18-20% with silage ground staying green after cutting, rather than the usual browning off period whilst swards recover. This has lead to a reduction in bought in Nitrogen fertiliser use over the whole farm, particularly in the grain maize fields, the flora and fauna levels in the soils as a result is improving along with soil structure.

The combination of crimped maize and Lucerne in the diet has added an additional 1.5p quality premium to their milk price, which is making the business far more viable. It is also providing the basis for a more balanced diet, with good quality grass silage under pinning it. 'Most importantly, the growing of grain maize at £70 per ton in the clamp, the improved milk price as a result of better quality milk, the savings from inclusion of Lucerne into the diet has stabilised the farm business, on the borrowings side and the new bank protocols, our business is more sound and is allowing us to push forward and further invest in our enterprise.

As Simon has said before, "Dry grain production requires varieties with rapid dry-down rates, harvested after the leaves have died back and typically followed by the removal of 10%-15% moisture in a dryer, which increases the cost of the final product and is a major factor in steering producers towards moist storage after crimping".

“The high energy content and slow starch degradation characteristics make crimped grain maize an ideal moist concentrate feed for high-performance dairy and beef animals. It is convenient and reliable, ideal for use on farms where maize silage area is limited but where additional starch is required in the diet. Typically, the nutrient analysis for crimped grain is 65%-75% Dry Matter, 12-13 ME, 9-11% crude protein and 60%-70% starch. What makes Lorado so good is that it typically has a protein value of 12.7%, much more than other varieties and this does make a big difference in the ration".

“Grain maize provides a much more concentrated form of energy than forage maize, which is very important in achieving the correct energy-density in rations, enabling cows to eat more and make more milk. It is also very convenient, allowing livestock farmers to ‘top up’ lower-quality forages and those who buy in straights to purchase the exact tonnage they require, as and when they need it, which benefits cash-flow.

“Many farmers have tried to produce grain maize using conventional forage varieties, but these will only dry down slowly to a minimum of 30% moisture, making the crop difficult to combine in often wet and windy conditions late in November or December. Growing specialist grain maize varieties will make a big difference, but producing a good crop requires a different technique in terms of variety, plant population, nitrogen management and timing".

“It is essential to choose the correct variety. Lorado was bred by Limagrain specifically to perform well in Northern Europe. It is one of the earliest-maturing varieties in the Maize Growers Association trials and under favourable conditions does not require covering with plastic. Despite being the tallest on the NIAB list, it has excellent standing power, good disease resistance, excellent early vigour and good cob tip cover, which eliminates the risk of mould infection from ‘snouting’. Lorado produces excellent yields of high-quality grain, has superb dry-down characteristics and will reach 25% moisture, making it easier to harvest.What growers don't always appreciate is that dry-down gets slower the later the crop gets into October, particularly when you start getting into November, whilst the ground and conditions typically are getting wetter! It sounds obvious, but I am seeing combines running down in the southwest in late November by which time white moulds, fusarium and cob rot are starting to really take hold. The whole idea should be to harvest as pure a form of starch as possible, yet by planting later maturing varieties, even under plastic, the resultant contamination risks are hugely increased, negating the advantages of inclusion in the diet. We are harvesting Lorado at Bude before most of the forage varieties are harvested, which gives some idea of just how early to mature it is".

“Grain maize crops should be sown as early in April as possible, when soil temperature reaches 8°C, into light, free-draining soils in South-facing fields that warm up quickly during the spring and drain well right through until harvest. Whereas crops grown for crimped maize production typically require a seed rate of 38,000-40,000 seeds/acre, for grain maize production this should be reduced to 36,000-38,000 seeds/acre.

“In addition to its many economic benefits, grain maize also has significant environmental benefits. The defra guidelines indicate that farmers should sow a green cover crop after harvesting forage maize to prevent soil erosion. With grain maize, however, this is not necessary as the stova is chopped and spread, creating a ‘mat’ that allows machinery to travel on the land more easily, greatly reducing soil erosion/run-off, improving soil structure and lowering the export of Phosphate and Potash from the field/farm, a big win-win situation given the current rising cost of fertiliser”.

Your soil, millions of years in the making.

The new seasons crops are in the ground, or in the process of going in, some of it has been drilled in haste after a long protracted period of wet drizzly conditions resulting from a drawn out harvest. Although the conditions weren't as bad as in 2007, never the less, soil conditions weren't great with quiete a lot of compaction issues resulting from heavy machinery trying to get the crops off before they went flat. Now this is probably not the case in most counties east of the M5 where a lack of moisture is more of a problem and having enough moisture to get the new crop to germinate is the pressing issue.

When I was farming in Zimbabwe, moisture retention, deficit irrigation, minimum tillage, trash incorporation, controlled traffic, were all tools we used to boost the water holding capacity of our soils, along with a very active soil testing regime to monitor lime, organic matter, and P&K's. The Agricultural Research Trust Farm (ART Farm as it was known) sponsored by the Commercial Farmers Union and other producer groups, was way ahead of it's time in carrying out research and testing techniques to boost grain production in a way that boosted the bottom line on the balance sheet, rather than pure out and out yield. The attention to detail was scary, something we struggled to get our heads around at the time as we saw it as a huge burdensome amount of paperwork and record keeping. However, they could tell you to the nearest cent how much a field of maize, soya, grass, etc, had cost to grow, how much it had produced and what the margins were over a wide range of parameters. This wasn't a small little research unit either of 50 acres either, but a commercial unit. There was focus, right from the very top, all the way down to tractor driver level on getting the basics right.

The soils we farm with here in UK aren't wildly different to some of those I farmed in Zim, some of the red clay loams around Crediton, or parts of Shropshire are similar to the best soils we had, however most of our soils would be classified as green sands, or vlei sands as we called them, grade 4 and 5 stuff. Easily compacted, very little organic matter, easily capped and really easily eroded in heavy rain. We had contour drains on all arable ground with a gradient steeper than 1 in 50 just to control  erosion, as well as manage moisture retention. In the USA and Canada, they call this strip farming and can be seen clearly in the photo below.


Photo by Tim McCabe, USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service

So why do we not see the same level of care of soils here in the UK as in other parts of the world?


Photo by Rodney Burton, Wigborough, Somerset.


Land near Launceston

The maize harvest is going great guns now, some of it is fit and some not quite ready. Soils vary in the amount of moisture in them, but with the cooler weather, there is less evaporation and drying out taking place, so even small showers are keeping some areas saturated and making traveling conditions difficult with harvesting machinery resulting in deep ruts and compaction areas being created. So all the sponginess will have disappeared in these areas, less air in the soil, less absorbtion capacity, poorer rooting potential for the following wheat crops where going in, as running a ripper tine through wet soil has little benefit and will lead to greater soil slumping in the spring. A deep hard frost would do more to restore some structure than a tine. Most farmers will be ploughing these spots in the hope that this will help, however in my experience this just results in the compacted blocks being inverted with little restoration of structure and doesn't solve the issue of the deeper compaction problems. Really, these can only be tackled after harvest next year, you just have to live with the consequences of this late maize harvest and possibly look at better, lighter, south facing, sheltered fields for next year.

Maize under plastic has done well for a few people in the past, it does enable you to harvest 2-3 weeks earlier than normally, although it is questionable having seen data that you get a heavier crop with more starch than conventional maize. If you are reliant on using this type a system to grow maize, you really do need to look closely at this picture taken last year in March in Devon showing the amount of plastic still littering the field. This plastic is NOT biodegradable, it is PHOTO degradable, meaning it needs sunlight (ultraviolet light) to help it degrade, rather like clear PVC pannels in rooves that break down over time and become brittle. It does not however completely disappear, all that happens is that these 'squares' of little bits of plastic disintergrate into ever smaller pieces down to microscopic level, but they never fully decompose. We have this very same situation on coast line beaches which are becoming ever more contaminated with plastic. The issue is this, your soil is your lifeblood if you are a farmer, allowing it to become contaminated in a relatively short time period of one generation, compared to the millions of years it has taken to form, is folly. What will happen in 10 years time when these microscopic particles start to filter through into water courses and the water table. Already the Environment Agency are stepping up their surveilence teams and monitoring closely waters in catchment sensitive areas, for runnoff and siltation, we know water companies are looking at phosphate levels, not just nitrogen polution and metaldehydes. There are better forms of plastic out there that are properly BIOdegradable, that break down completely, the best being that made from maize starch which has a fertilising effect as it does so, but which was discontinued some years ago as the cheaper photodegradable stuff was promoted. The better stuff costs more, as you would expect, the question you need to ask is what is the long term viability of your farm soils if you are totally reliant on short term solutions?

And since we are talking about lifeblood, how many farmers are soil testing regularly, accurately and correcting the issues as they arise in a timely manner? Below is an example of the type of pH soil testing I do, the importance of this method was drummed into me by R&T Agricultural Liming, long before the likes of other companies that went on to develope an electronic method using computer software to predict and interpret soil tests and plot them in multicoloured maps.

Finding and correcting areas of low pH is vital in getting the best out of inputs and maximising yields through efficient use of inputs, especially fertilser and sprays. It is amazing how much soils vary within fields, especially in areas where soils are traditionally expected to be alkaline, like over Cotswold brash type soils, or clay caps over chalk downland, or where light shillit types run into heavy Dunsland/ Lyas blue type clay. Correcting the areas where there are deficiencies, not just blanket coverage is obviously cost effective and lessons the risks of over liming and locking up major and minor trace elements.

The result of not having a regular lime testing and spreading program results in test results like this above. When you start getting results like this in the very low 5's, it takes a very large amount of liming material to correct the deficit and cannot all be aplied at once either, but needs to be spread out over a couple of crops. It's is also important to remember the pH scale is a logorithic scale, meaning it is exponential in the amount of corrective material needed to address the problem.


Spring Barley near Bodmin struggling on a pH of 5.6 in 2009

 Too much lime can also be an issue, something I see particularly on dairy units that are using seasand as bedding in cubicles, which then gets pumped out in the slurry onto the fields usually closest to the unit. I am seeing pH's in the very high 7's and low 8's in parts of Cornwall with trace element lock up really becoming an issue. I have had a number of farmers saying that their pH's are good, yet their grass is analysing low in calcium when they do tissue analysis. Having tested and found these pH's up near 8, gypsum then becomes about the only way of boosting Calcium availability without raising the pH. A lot of work has been done on this not only here in the UK, but all around the world, however I have yet to come across an agronomist with any major company that knows anything about it, the only one I have come across is Jo Scammel who does a lot with Dairy farmers in Gloucestershire and who runs the soil clinics at the dairy event.
With the push for bigger dairy units, one has to ask what the long term consequences of very high concentrated levels of slurry will be on the micro organisms in the soil profile on these units. For sure, every arable farmer in the east would probably gladly want a dairy farmer next door where he can rotate, or share field rotations with so he gets organic manure back into his soils. In the last three years I have managed to demonstrate to a number of cereal growers just how important chicken muck is and how putting back organic matter into the soils where continuous wheat is being grown is vital in maintaining yield and grain quality. On one unit in particular we have taken average yield from 2.6t/ac in years 2006-2009 to over 3.7t/ac this year. It has been interesting to physically see how the soil structure has changed, it is far more friable, works easier, doesn't cap so easily straight after heavy rain, nor does it slump as much during the winter. With the addition of using Nickerson original seed too, there are no big bare patches where there is nothing growing like there used to be in the past as the wet areas don't compact and slump like they used too and the film coated seeds allows faster, bigger root systems to develope quickly to take advantage of the nutrients on tap making winter kill less of an issue, even though last year was one of the coldest in a very long time.

However we have a few cases now developing of the opposite starting to occurr, very large dairy units with very high stocking rates/ac (3+ cows/ac) as the animals are housed most of the year round. That means there is a lot of slurry to spread on quite a tight area of ground, with the result that the ground is being drowned in slurry, literally. Lots of dead worms littering the top soil, large bare patches developing in between grass plants where they have been suffocated by slurry, sward quality and grass yields falling as a result. Sward lifters, slitters and slotters can only do so much in the short term to alleviate these issues, the longer term damage is the more worrying problem that is being stored up for the following generations.

We need to start looking at farming in a much more holistic manner, indeed Allan Savoury who conducted trials in grazing and land management first in the Karoo many years ago in South Africa and subsequently has started a foundation in the USA following extensive work in Texas and other ranching states has laid out some key principles in this area. I would recommend farmers read some of his work, or look at this website http://www.holisticmanagement.org/ especially those in drier parts.

We are all players in the food chain, whether consumers, or producers. We need to ensure that we look after our primary resource, the soils we grow our food off.

If you eat, you are involved in agriculture.

Cornish Wheat Demo 2011 results.

Here are the results for the demo plots down near Tregony. It cannot be described as a scientifically statistically replicated trial, however it's pretty representative of this seasons results seen elsewhere on farms. Its is interesting that when we had open evenings the three varieties that looked promising in the plots also yielded very well, with Invicta tops, Einstein next followed by Claire. We all forget about Claire these days with all the newer varieties being released and coming to the fore, but Claire still just does it year after year, I know of someone in Wiltshire whose average yield of Claire this year was well over 5ton/ac!

Cornish Wheat Demonstration Results 2011
Variety	Grain yield Kgs	Tons/ha	Moisture%	Specific Weight	Relative Yield
Xi 19	575	11.83	16	73.8	103
Exsept	555	11.42	16.4	75.2	99
Einstein	590	12.14	16	75.2	105
Panorama	575	11.83	16	75	103
Claire	580	11.93	16.4	75.6	104
Invicta	615	12.65	16.5	73.2	110
Alchemy	555	11.42	16.4	76.2	99
Edmunds	565	11.63	16.4	73.4	101
Istabraq	560	11.52	16.2	75.8	100
Cassius	510	10.49	16	74.5	91
Gravitas	565	11.63	16.2	74.8	101
Sahara	530	10.91	16.4	74	95
Stigg	565	11.63	15.8	74.4	101
JB Diego	575	11.83	16.3	74.2	103
Robigus	555	11.42	16.4	74.3	99
Deben	505	10.39	15.7	72.8	90
Oakley	545	11.21	16.2	70.2	97
Duxford	555	11.42	16.2	74.8	99
Total			10075
Average			560

These plots all have very similar levels of moisture content, I have not put the results down at exactly the same moisture contents, rather left them as found to show the differences. If anyone disagrees with my methodology, let me know. So Invicta is the one that looked good all the way through and has come out tops. Sahara looked thin, if you look at earlier videos, it did look weaker all the way through, likewise Cassius which was hit very badly by Septoria, losing virtually all it's leaf area fairly early on. Oakley was hit very badly by Yellow Rust. Xi19 has been surprising, I really was not expecting it to do as well as it did, whilst for all the percieved wisdom and previous experience Stigg has turned in a good performance with a specific weight better than JB Diego.

So, all in all, an interesting experience, the 2011/12 plots have now been drilled with a whole lot of new varieties in them as well as the older established ones and I look forward to seeing how the new ones stack up down here in the far Southwest.