diversification success

Mr Cooke says. “We’re now looking to double our area of pumpkins next year, and perhaps increase the number of varieties we grow.”

In a year characterised by an extremely hot and dry summer, other crops and grassland on Mr Cooke’s 108ha farm benefited from his use of Edwards Advanced Seaweed and BioN –another blend of bacteria from Biolevel which can fix atmospheric nitrogen and make phosphorus more available to plants.

Root growth

Grassland used for grazing by the 140 cross-bred Montbeliarde, Holstein and Norwegian Red dairy cows was sprayed with a single application of BioN, to- gether with Edwards Advanced Seaweed in April.

That followed a pass with an aerator earlier in the season, he recalls. “In conjunction, the two promoted a lot of root growth, which stood it in good stead for the drought.”

Substantial amounts of grass grew without any applications of slurry or calcium ammonium nitrate until it burned up in the drought. “I was pre-mowing good quality grass with very little rejection from the end of April through to the end of June.”

Cows were turned out at the end of February, with paddocks typically grazed for 12 hours before moving. “We were able to go around the paddocks four or five times, and even on the fifth time

plications of BioN and Edwards

Advanced Seaweed likely to be applied to his 15ha of wheat this spring for the first time.

MaizeNP – a maize specific version of the Biolevel microbial blend – was used as a seed treatment last season, with a follow up spray of BioN and Edwards Advanced Seaweed applied in a nutrition programme that also included a nitrogen foliar feed as late as he could go with a selfpropelled sprayer, Mr Cooke says.

“The maize stayed green into November, as we had to delay harvest until after the pumpkin and Alpaca events were over. The crop did well considering the season, and importantly stayed green and healthy until we could harvest it.”

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