Arable News

After a challenging season for arable farmers, the window before harvest is an opportunity to check and map the black-grass situation to plan for the months ahead.

Experts are investigating ways to create new foods and related products from alternative crops to maximise the use of locally produced food and drink. 

With the exceptionally dry spring likely to have a knock-on effect on forage supplies, harvesting cereals originally drilled for grain as wholecrop in the coming weeks could help ease future shortages.

As exceptionally dry weather has meant poor early grass growth in many parts, forage supply may not meet demand for grazing cattle and sheep.

The UK faces a shortage of fruit and vegetables under a no-Brexit scenario unless new markets are found soon, experts at Scotland’s Rural College (SRUC) have warned.

New to the Recommended List in 2019, KWS Firefly is the UK’s highest yielding Group 3 milling wheat at 102% of controls.

Spot-treating large perennial weeds such as brambles, gorse and broom in summer will catch them at the right time before they start dying back for winter, giving the best results according to Dr Nicola Perry, weed biology specialist for Corteva Agriscience.

Based on the full Recommended Lists for cereals and oilseeds (RL), AHDB’s new app provides a powerful and pint-sized way to deliver variety data to farmers’ fingertips. The app, which

Livestock farmers who normally grow winter wheat as a feed crop for their cattle – but have different cereals in the ground this year – are being urged to consider post-harvest alkalisation to boost nutrient value.

Resistance strains to the highly popular blight fungicide fluazinam developed in the UK population probably because of over use of a single active. Looking at The Pesticide Usage Survey, going back several years, the usage of fluazinam has been as high as 384,000 hectares in 2010.

Rain showers and warming temperatures have heightened the threat of potato blight with Hutton Criteria disease warnings declared across many of the UK’s key growing regions.

In a bid to change mind sets Suffolk farmer Brian Barker wants to see how far he can lower inputs whilst boosting crop yields and profit margins.