​New season fertiliser will be upon us in the next couple of months. With many farmers caught out by this season's price rise, what can you do today to mitigate your risk? What caused this year's price trend? Global urea values increased by £60 per tonne throughout the season. China – the world's biggest producer – had reduced exports by almos...

The AHDB Recommended List saw the addition of four new wheat varieties available to market for crop 2019. With many of my growers in the south seeking more information on these additions, I thought it would be worthwhile taking a look at the pros and cons of each as well as investigating how they compare against current options.  1. RGT Gravit...

Often overlooked, the humble grain moisture meter is a significant piece of equipment that can help to determine the key characteristics of your crop while harvesting, drying and ensuring the correct storage. Accurate readings are crucial for safeguarding the condition of your grain so it's important to ensure your meter is in full-working order. W...

While a distant memory, the warm, dry weather of October and November allowed most winter crops to be drilled in fairly good conditions and establish well. It also encouraged mineralisation, producing good levels of nitrogen to aid early growth. In fact, in the run up to Christmas it very much looked like soil nitrogen levels would be higher than n...

Well, the winter workshop campaign has finished for another year and was hugely successful – it is always a pleasure to tour the country seeing our customers. At the workshops, I talked about what we have been developing at SOYL over the last year, as well as how and why farmers should be using these innovations within their businesses. Importance ...

SOYL have been conducting trials using variable rate plant growth regulators (PGRs) on both winter oilseed rape and winter wheat. The premise for variable applications on both crops is the same – that there will be a yield benefit from applying a full rate of PGR on crops that are at risk from lodging because of over-large canopies. However, if the...

Over the past few seasons, SOYL has been developing precision farming services for the grassland industry. Grass is the UK's largest crop and is grown in every county. A particular area that became a focus was that of pasture management and we discussed this during our winter workshops. A grassland and livestock famer needs to make constant decisio...

Although the 'beast from the east' has now left us, it certainly made an impact in Herefordshire by bringing with it a blanket of snow and -5 temperatures, not least with the chaos it caused across the country. Because of this, it's not surprising that input discussions and fertiliser recommendations were put on hold. However, ahead of the storm we...

It is always the first question we get asked when it comes to customer iPads – is mine compatible when it comes to variable rate? It's easy to assume that "an iPad is an iPad, so it will just work" but unfortunately this is not always the case. Some iPads only have wifi capabilities as opposed to 4G data, while others may not have a GPS module insi...

As you may already know, over the last couple of months we've been speaking to growers up and down the country as part of our series of #3DThinking seminars. We've seen a great turnout and the seminars give us a really good opportunity to talk about our trials progress and the discoveries made so far. In particular, I've been sharing our findi...

I had the privilege of meeting England 1966 World Cup goal scorer Sir Geoff Hurst at the beginning of my career. Sir Geoff was giving an after dinner speech at an awards ceremony during my time at Bishop Burton College. One of the things he said to us was: "Go out and be the best you can be in your chosen field and never give up." These words are a...

Recently, there have been huge variations in weather between the counties and over very short distances. A generalisation that it has been either wet or dry wouldn't necessarily be true for all. With that in mind, I want to take a look at the weather and the influence this has had on soils and cropping over winter. In Herefordshire and the three co...

We are now over half way through the marketing year, with harvest '18 in our sights. I am based out of our Ross-on-Wye Frontier office, farm trading in the West and with our grain markets still at relatively static levels this has sparked more focus for long holders to start securing end markets for old crop grain. Many growers across the three cou...

It's been a busy start to the year carrying out training and visiting growers in Herefordshire. I am a trainee agronomist at Frontier in the west and also involved with the team that look after the #3DThinking Ledbury site. The trials that take place there offer valuable insight into the differences between several crop varieties and are a vital ai...

​The Frontier Potato Seedcare team and I had a busy few days at Potato 2017 last month, meeting lots of growers and advisors. While we enjoyed a great range of interesting discussions with those who attended, there was one topic which proved particularly popular – the move to liquid seed treatment. Attendees were keen to discuss the possibility of ...

This week saw the annual publication of the AHDB Recommended List. This year sees a new look to the list with a move back to a one-page wheat round up. This is likely to be welcomed by many of us as it's easier to view, especially if this carries through to the printed version. Welcome new varieties Although wheat varieties are down to one page the...

Changes are ahead for Ecological Focus Areas (EFAs). However, by taking a more precise approach to tailor the farm areas allocated to EFAs and choosing longer term crop options, they still represent a fantastic opportunity to improve biodiversity and the farm's bottom line. EFAs have hit the headlines due to the imminent removal of the use of Plant...

Given recent regulatory changes how can potato store managers adapt working practices to ensure CIPC fogging remains an effective tool even at new lower dosage levels? The CIPC Stewardship Group has widely advertised summer 2017 changes to CIPC potato sprout suppressant labels that, amongst other requirements, brought in reduced individual and maxi...

There have been some fantastic crop yields reported this year. Early harvested sugar beet crops are yielding particularly well, with 100t/ha already talked about and plenty of growth to come from crops still in the ground. Forage maize crops are also performing very well, as did the hybrid rye crops foraged earlier this year. The cereal harvest was...

Controlling black-grass in a rotation is a regular topic of conversation for many farmers – looking at how to best maintain, control and, more importantly, get on top of black-grass. After decades of research across the industry and experts recommending key steps on how to master the spread of this prolific weed, the simple answer is that sadly the...