In my role as MySOYL Business Lead, I regularly talk to customers who are looking to find new technology to make their farms more efficient and profitable. In these conversations, one of the most common questions I get asked is "What is MySOYL and how can it help me?" For those of you wondering the same, I thought I'd use this blog to answer this q...

Whilst the combines have been rolling, I have been speaking to an increasing number of customers and advisers who are looking to prepare for 2020 harvest crops. A common topic often covered is liming policy and the challenges associated with planning and prioritising applications. We have previously posted about the benefits of correcting soil pH a...

Using satellites to get a different perspective of your farm really can open up a wealth of opportunities. Of course, we all know that satellite imagery isn't a new thing – people have been using it to take images of crops since 1995. However, the accuracy, resolution, frequency and our overall understanding of the technology has drastically improv...

Last harvest, the prolonged hot weather greatly affected grass growth across the UK and caused a shortage of silage for many livestock farmers. To help meet demand, the majority of growers were baling their straw after harvest but, as explained in my blog at the time, this led to many questions about the impact on nutrient off take.  This year...

In my role, I often get asked which events we'll be attending and where customers can catch up with us over the coming months. Our local SOYL colleagues regularly attend and host events up and down the country, sharing expertise and helping customers to make the most of every hectare. Events are a key element of our agricultural calendar and someth...

Remote sensing in agriculture is nothing new. However, with drones gaining more publicity over the last few years, some would argue it has felt somewhat revolutionary all over again. Rather than new sensors, what actually came along were new platforms and all too often it is only these that get the attention. We're all made aware when the latest se...

There has been a lot of interest in variable rate nitrogen this season driven by crops that are full of potential, and good market prices. SOYL's variable rate nitrogen service, based on reliable satellite imagery, has proven yield and protein benefits. One way of showing how we achieve these improvements is to show visually how the crop responds t...

SOYL has been exhibiting at CropTec since it first started back in 2013. In the four times that it has been held since, the show has grown considerably and is a valuable chance for growers to talk to us in a focussed yet informal and relaxed environment. CropTec is considered the "UK's leading technical and knowledge exchange event for the arable f...

At the beginning of August, I wrote a blog on the importance of correcting your pH and the benefits that this can bring to you and your land. Lime spreaders have been working at full capacity across the UK since then and it has served as a reminder of just how many different liming products are available. As a result, I thought it would be helpful ...

Over the last five-to-six years, it's been clear to see an ever-increasing area of maize being grown across the UK. Maize has a number of production uses but the most notable are bio-gas and forage. With so many now taking on the crop and due to the nature of which it is grown, it's important to consider careful management while it's in the ground ...

With autumn drilling well underway, I thought I would share a little insight into how our SOYL customer cupport team works with growers during these busy months. Farmer support SOYL customer support offers advice and assistance on a variety of different areas in precision farming. From step-by-step guidance for connecting iSOYL to a drill control s...

Oh, to be more organised! Much of what we see around the farm is reactive, driving past a field or walking across it and recording what you see. This is how crop development has been managed and monitored for a very long time. However, there is a different way and it is based upon the information that you have already recorded across the farm. Data...

This blog was first featured as an article in the October issue of Three Counties Farmer: Every conversation I have with people in the agricultural world seems to conclude with the opinion that "When it rains, it won't know when to stop." A common term used, especially in the autumn period when focus turns to potato harvest, autumn cereal drilling ...

​For the most part, many of us will admit that when it comes to fertiliser applications we can be guilty of concentrating solely on the application of nitrogen. The most common questions often revolve around the correct nitrogen rates and predicted yield responses but, in all honesty, it isn't all we should be thinking about. As an industry, when f...

I had the pleasure of attending Tillage Live 2018 last week. This year, the event was held in Dunbar, East Lothian and although SOYL have always supported the event, it had been of couple of years since I'd been myself. I was really looking forward to exploring the site, talking to lots of attendees and seeing the impressive demonstrations on show....

​Imagine if there was a way to automatically know which areas of your production system are most profitable and those which are loss-making. Wouldn't it be great to know which management decisions had paid off, which new methods of working had or hadn't worked and if all of this information could be collected with minimum effort? For farmers that t...

As I write this, I am travelling on the train from Edinburgh to Newark. What is great about travelling on the train is seeing, in detail, the beautiful British countryside. It's a great opportunity to review the land and see the huge variations that exist within fields. Even within stubble fields you can see the differences in crop thickness from o...

Catch crops, sown in the summer, can be used very effectively as part of an Ecological Focus Area (EFA) greening requirement. These crops offer potential benefits to soil and rotation management beyond the financial rewards of EFA. However, it's important to comply with EFA criteria around management dates. Catch crops that were established by the ...

​This blog was first featured as an article in the September issue of Three Counties Farmer What a difference a day makes. It's a lovely song by Dinah Washington, originally written in Spanish by Maria Grever. It's been covered by many artists over the years and no doubt murdered on the X Factor in more recent times. Having been lucky enough to tra...