FEATURE
FARMER FOCUS
ADAM DRIVER What a season we have had! Its years like this when we can really learn a lot about our farming system and what we are trying to do.
intricate ecology we are working with and share knowledge. Our soils will improve and shelter us from these extremes of weather and volatility of the industry.
So, it went stupidly wet stupidly quickly. We have had some really easy seasons in the past 5 years where we have been able to drill later for blackgrass control. Can we start drilling earlier again with low disturbance drills now we are on top of the problem? I hope so. Should we be growing catch crops in front of winter crops? I think this can really help mitigate some of the issues with heavy rain, catch crops will pump water in the autumn. It is often claimed they do this in the spring however from personal experience this is not true. For the autumn I think it is far more plausible as the plants are generally growing pretty fast. Soil structure, of course is at the forefront. Better soils infiltrate more water and hold machinery (even big heavy stuff) far better than fluffy cultivated stuff. Good soil structure is at the core of what we are all trying to do and a season like this highlights that even more. There were many horror pictures of soils washing away due to poor soil management on social media. It gets dismissed as the “weathers fault”. Not a good enough excuse for me I’m afraid. Seeing these kinds of pictures and the excuses that went with them were frankly worrying and highlighted the lack of ownership UK farmers have of their problems.
What is the solution to all this? Keep learning, keep pushing, keep trying. There are no magic bullets!
Drainage is something that has come up again with a season like this. With no tilling on hanslope clay soils I think good drainage can be the difference between success and failure. We do a lot of mole draining, often in the spring and the better drained fields look so much better for it in both winter and spring crops. Some of the old drainage systems are starting to really show their age now so we will be looking at ways to either repair or replace them. I have an appointment to view a tractor mounted trencher next week. Afterall, there is loads of free time when you aren’t making dust with cultivators for months on end! The spring as we all know, was equally ridiculous. There is no way a soil should go from being absolutely sodden to being too dry to germinate a crop in 5 days as some were reporting. Soils just aren’t working properly in many places around the country, including some of my own. These extremes of weather do appear to be becoming more regular. We need more resilient soils in order to deal with them. I discussed with a friend the other day about the regen journey we are both on. He pointed out as farmers we are so used to be able to instantly buy a piece of kit, a chemical or a fertiliser that gets us out of muddle or solves a problem, or it has in the past. What we are doing now is a much longer game. We need to focus on the core principles and not revert in panic if something goes wrong. Over time as we build our soils, gain a better understanding of the soil biology and the 80 DIRECT DRILLER MAGAZINE
A quick update on crops. OSR, this looks okay and will be ready for harvest in about 7-10 days (its 28th June today). I don’t expect it to break any records but has been grown very cheaply, it should offer a reasonable margin with minimal capital risked. Wheat looks average to poor. Spring crops are a mixed bag but generally pretty good. Winter barley looks well and will be harvest next week. I am looking forward to getting this years crop out the way, chasing the combine with the muck spreaders and drill planting OSR and cover crops. UK agriculture is at somewhat of a cross roads. A red blue pill, blue pill moment. Whilst it used to be “conventional vs organic”, the regenerative group has formed. I have started to try and view the way we farm as treating causes not symptoms, conventional farming has always been about treating symptoms. This has worked well for a long time and done its job. However, we are on a treadmill in which we externalize all of our problem solving. This exports a lot of money from farm businesses. Gene editing is now being pushed by many farmers and the farming lobby groups as some kind of saviour to post Brexit farming. They promise amazing advances such as nitrogen fixing wheat, disease resistant crops, drought tolerant crops (why we need drought tolerant crops in the UK proves how bad our soil management is!), gluten free etc. These are supposed to be provided by small UK companies. This is all well and good, but how will those companies avoid the clutches of bio-tech giants they could theoretically put out of business? It is a lovely thought that small UK seed breeders will provide wonderful traits for the benefit of the population, but I fear they will be bought out very quickly by corporate power of the bio-tech companies. What GE (and GM) are essentially trying to do is fix problems from our reductionist approach to agriculture. The Green Revolution was touted as a scientific marvel but here we are, with the same problems and awaiting more answers to be provided to us. GE is just a continuation of the treadmill, the treatment of symptoms rather than causes, how long until GE traits get resistance? Not long if you look
ISSUE 10 | JULY 2020
