30 minute read
Talking Roots
DARRYLShailes
The delay in drilling and cold weather means it is probable we will have to treat the beet for aphids
The old saying goes ‘March winds and April showers bring forth May flowers’.
Not this season, however, which has seen the coldest and driest April since records began. May has brought much needed showers – and how things have changed since the rain, with the countryside changing from a yellow and purple hue to green with flowers and blossom. Although I think the lack of frost has had more of an impact than the rain.
The cold weather has delayed our asparagus, the swallows have only just arrived and I’ve yet to hear a cuckoo in the valley. Last year I heard one on April 11 and those big black bibionids, commonly known as St Mark’s flies as they normally emerge on St Mark’s day on April 24, are only now appearing around two-three weeks late. Will all the old names and sayings have to be changed with the changing climate?
I don’t think I’ve got a crop of beet that will be down the row by Suffolk Show, although they have grown a lot in the last few days. With this recent rapid growth, we can anticipate some crop damage from herbicides as sugar beet is the most susceptible to damage at the 2-3 leaf stage with rapid growth and warmth. Historically it’s always the same, although even with the best planning we sometimes get caught out.
I have just seen my first Cavariella aegopodii (carrot willow aphid) and Myzus persicae (peach potato aphid), again a month later than last year, although last year they were very early.
On guard
Over the next few weeks, we will have to be on our guard to ensure the virus they can carry won’t affect crops.
Virus yellows in sugar beet was a huge issue in 2020 and when the emergency approval for Cruiser SB (thiamethoxam) wasn’t forthcoming, as the cold weather in January and February meant that the criteria in the approval weren’t met, we assumed it wouldn’t be an issue as the beet would be too far forward to be badly affected.
However, the delay in drilling and then the cold weather means it’s now probable we will have to treat the beet once or even twice to get them to the 12-14 leaf stage when virus transmission is likely to be less. We’ll be down on our hands and knees checking for the green wingless aphid threshold of one per four plants until the 12-14 leaf stage – so an aching back for the next three-four weeks or so. Old age is a wonderful thing.
We’ve just had a new emergency approval come through, so at least we’ll have a chance of managing if we get the timing correct.
Carrot willow and peach potato aphids can both transmit virus in potatoes, so monitoring of yellow water and sticky traps also becomes a priority over the next few weeks in seed crops. We have an armoury, even though it’s quite limited, especially against virus yellows which as we know is a non-persistent virus, so managing transmission with insecticides is a real challenge.
Virus management in potatoes is now at the forefront of integrated pest management and cover crops, location, use of resistant varieties, barrier crops and barrier sprays are now as important as insecticides.
The integrated crop management aspects of our industry are increasing rapidly, driven by sustainability, justification, cost and the approval arena we work in.
It will be interesting to see what it leads to over the next few seasons.
Agronomist facts
JDarryl Shailes is root crop technical manager for Hutchinsons, with a nationwide remit. He has been working in potato agronomy for more than 20 years.
Establishment systems and cultivations create debate. But one thing is clear, given the amount of consideration to soil type cropping, in the end it becomes a very personal decision. Mike Abram looks at why four growers have chosen their systems.
The cultivation systems growers use to establish crops, or indeed whether to cultivate at all, have created many hours of discussion in pubs, forums and on social media channels over the past 20 years.
Part of the reason it creates so much debate is there are so many factors to consider, from climate to weed control requirements, the area to establish in what time frame, to reliability and cost.
That varies so much from farm to farm and soil type to soil type, so it is no wonder there are so many different opinions about which system is the best to use.
Equipment
Countering that requires flexibility, suggests Ed Worts, arable product specialist with machinery manufacturer Kuhn. That can either be in what kit is available on-farm, or by how equipment can be set up.
“There is equipment that can be used at multiple depths and situations, such as working at deeper cultivation depths when you’re trying to alleviate compaction, and to a much shallower depth when that is all that is required.
One important factor when considering new equipment purchases is how easy is it to change settings, he says.
For very shallow cultivations it is critical for the set-up to be parallel to the ground from front to back and side to side, he adds.
Depth
“At shallow working depth, if one side lifts by 20mm, you can potentially halve your working depth, whereas with deeper cultivations it is not as critical.
“We’ve now developed 12-metre wide disc cultivators
The flexible opportunist
JFlexibility is fundamental to the success of Colin Chappell’s crop establishment policy. He has little other choice thanks to high magnesium content clay soils on the banks of River Ancholme, Brigg, which, because of magnesium’s greater attraction for water, do not take much to get sticky and difficult to work.
That is made worse by repeated flooding, partly because the river levels are controlled by the Environment Agency, as well as seemingly more frequent heavy rain events. And when the soils do dry out, they tend to shrink which brings its own problems, opening slots and exposing seed.
Attempts
Ideally, he would like to do as little cultivation as possible, but previous attempts at no-till establishment made him recognise that his soils were not ready for it.
“The plan is over seven or eight years you make the soil easier to work, more amenable to whatever kit you want.”
That plan includes starting to maintain cover as much as possible through the year and he has seen improvements in water infiltration rates.
“We are finding less puddling, but also less droughting as water passes through the soil profile quicker, while retaining more water for the roots to access. But I know I haven’t perfected using cover crops yet.”
For now, he has become an opportunistic direct driller when
Colin Chappell
Establishment systems and cultivations create debate. But one thing is clear, given the amount of consideration to soil types and looks at why four growers have chosen their systems.
and we’re working on active ground following systems to ensure the machines are working at the same depth across the larger working widths.”
Ploughs also offer flexibility, not so much in purpose, but in being able to help provide an almost weather-proof establishment system, he says.
Plough sales are relatively stable, with a shift towards on-land ploughs because of easier use with GPS systems and reduced compaction, despite their relatively high cost in wearing metal, fuel use and time.
However, there has been a trend away from deeper cultivation min-till kit, partly for those reasons, says Mr Worts.
Trend
Weed control is also driving some of that trend, according to Craig Simpson, commercial technical manager for Bayer.
He says: “There is no one-size-fits-all policy that fits cultivation and weed control.
That’s leading to two popular approaches, especially on black-grass land – either burying seeds at depth with the plough or using shallow cultivations to deal with a minimised weed seed bank from the previous crop.
Perspective
To give perspective on how all those challenges make cultivation decision-making so varied, Arable Farming approached four farmers to talk through their situations across four very different land types.
More farmers’ experiences over the page.
conditions allow – typically winter wheat after peas or beans.
Low disturbance
“Usually I have to do a form of cultivation in front of the drill, which currently is with a low disturbance sub-soiler following the combine. If it is going to be bare over winter or a long period of time I sow a cover crop off the back of it.
“And then I follow up eight times out of 10 with a disc cultivator drill. That works the soil just enough, tickling the surface to provide a bit of mineralisation to allow the drill to do its job.
“In wet conditions, usually between November and February, we tend to switch to a tine drill, which works better in those conditions. It also works well on another part of the farm where the soil is limestone brash and can be a one-pass system.”
With black-grass a major challenge, the farm’s spring cropping area has increased. Again, ideally he destroys the cover crop and drills without any further cultivation.
Droughted
“But because the soil isn’t in good enough heart yet, it sometime slumps, so then I use the tine drill as a cultivator ahead of the disc cultivator drill, which with the cultivator kit on the front gives that little bit of fine crumb to get it away before it gets droughted.”
A key part of his black-grass control strategy is to spring crop three years in a row on his heavy land.
“Multiple years of spring cropping to then get your ultimate first wheat without needing to use too much chemistry to grow it.”
Cultivations are then used t o make sure he does not undo that good work as far as possible.
“I’ve found less is more when it comes to black-grass.”
The slowly reducing rotational plougher
JReliability of establishment is crucial for Stewart Cavers, who farms 760 hectares at Crosshall, Greenlaw, in the Scottish Borders.
With medium loam soils capable of averaging more than 10 tonnes per hectare of winter wheat, 5t/ha of oilseed rape and 8t/ha spring barley, but usually only one chance to put a crop in, reliability in his cultivation practices is high on his list of requirements.
Up until the turn of the century, that meant ploughing every field every year, but the advantages of using a deeper semi-inversion tillage system based on a disc/tine cultivator quickly became apparent.
“It gives a firmer seedbed, a better tilth, keeps the moisture in, all in one pass before drilling with a six-metre combination drill,” explains Mr Cavers. It also allows him to cover ground faster with reduced fuel usage and he’s seen improved slug control, particularly in oilseed rape.
“We’re finding we’re starting to min-till ahead of some spring crops more as well. For example, it is a long time between ploughing in October or November to drilling vining peas in May or June and with Scottish winter rainfall, you risk erosion and losing a lot of nutrients and organic matter.
“It doesn’t feel right to be leaving the soil bare that long, so anything going into peas we’re putting a cover crop of black oats and phacelia in, which is really helping improve organic matter and ticks the carbon footprint box.
“We also run sheep so we get some winter grazing after January. Yields of the peas last year where we cover cropped were noticeably better than in a field we ploughed and left.”
But the plough is far from being consigned to the weeds, being used ahead of both winter and spring barley crops. It both helps from spreading the workload, especially ahead of spring drilling and for weed management.
“I think it’s important to have a clean canvas ahead of barley.”
Sterile brome is becoming more of an issue in places on-farm, so the plough helps keep that under control, he says.
It’s also a good fallback tool for when conditions change, such as later in autumn when it starts getting a bit sticky for the disc/tine cultivator.
“I wouldn’t want to be without it. On our ground you can plough and put a combination drill on top and know you’ll get a decent crop.”
He uses a semi-mounted seven-furrow Kuhn Vari-Leader, with slatted bodies.
“We went for those because they break the ground up a little better to give a bit more tilth than a mouldboard.”
The combination of plough and semi-inversion gives him the best flexibility to meet his aims of guaranteed good establishment, he says.
And with traffic across fields high with straw removed and cattle muck spread, he can’t see a time when shallower tillage will be employed.
“I think you’re better going a little bit deeper,” he adds.
STEWART CAVERS
The reduced tillage cost cutter
JCost cutting was the initial driver for Chris Marchment to ditch the plough nearly 15 years ago on his 80-hectare farm at Andover, Hampshire.
His challenge is working clay-capped soils over chalk with one block having considerable flints and the costs of wearing metal and diesel had made ploughing an expensive establishment method.
The flint content of his soils also put him off direct drilling anything other than his winter beans. He’s also keen to make sure there’s good seed-to-soil contact, so he employs a reduced tillage system where he cultivates no more than the top 10cm of soil using a Kuhn Cultimer.
“It’s like it was almost built for me,” he says. “It has transformed my cultivations.”
The Cultimer has three rows of staggered tines, a row of levelling discs and a
The grower who is dedicated to direct drilling
JA commitment to a regenerative agriculture approach to farming with direct drilling as an important plank has helped Clive Bailye, growing combinable crops at scale near Lichfield, Staffordshire, halve his fixed cost structure since switching from a min-till approach in 2006.
He has a two-pronged approach to direct drilling on soils, which range from Wick series medium loams and sands over gravel on the home farm to soils with higher clay content on some of the contract land he also farms. The bulk of the work is done by a 12-metre disc drill, which
The reduced tillage cost cutter
rear roller. Mr Marchment uses front depth control wheels and wings on the tines to work the soil to 10cm depth.
He employs the Cultimer as soon as possible after harvest.
“It moves and mixes the chopped straw and stubble so well that most of the residue has disappeared when you get to drilling.”
Features
Tungsten-tipped points on the tines and the double spring loaded non-stop mechanical break-back system are particularly useful features on his flint soils, as is its ease of set up and adjustment.
He has found the lower disturbance method has also helped with his weed control.
“It’s been a knock-on effect that it has been easier to control weeds. Effectively, it creates a stale seedbed, which we can let green up and then spray off before drilling.”
Not having to struggle with black-grass, he aims to have winter wheat drilled by the first week of October.
Regime
The move to a shallower tillage regime has seen improvements in his soils, he says, helped by starting to use mustard as a cover crop.
“The ground works 100% easier than it did when we were ploughing. Less is more,” he adds.
The grower who is dedicated to direct drilling
copes well with drilling direct into cover crops as well as having a high output.
But in wetter conditions – as the past two autumns have been to some degree – he also uses a farm-workshop-modified 6m tine drill in combination with a front hopper.
Challenging
“In the last two years we have used that much more than we would usually plan to.”
Wet soils can make direct drilling challenging, he says.
“Even on our lighter soils it can be difficult to get the slot to close. The basics are important with no-till just like with any farming system – correct drainage is more important than the brand of drill.”
With a lower fixed cost structure, plan B of spring cropping is much more palatable, he adds.
“The whole point of our system is that using less machinery, horsepower, fuel and labour means I don’t need the high outputs to maintain profitability.”
The whole point of our system is that I don’t need the high outputs to maintain profitability
CLIVE BAILYE
Change
The change of approach has helped get on top of grassweed challenges, particularly sterile brome, that had been increasing under a previous deeper non-inversion approach, using a set of disc harrows and disc cultivator drill.
“No-till is not a silver bullet for grass-weeds. It helps because you’re keeping the problem on the surface where it is easier to treat rather than mixing it in the soil profile.
“But the thing that made the biggest difference in our system was the shift in rotation to more spring cropping, including later sown spring crops such as linseed and millet, which give any surface germinating grassweeds, such as brome, plenty of opportunity to germinate and be taken out by a glyphosate application.
“Having more crops in the rotation also means we’re using more modes of action – we’re not heavily relying on one or two groups of actives and a healthy rotation of actives should help avoid some of the resistance problems that can happen,” he says.
In the second of a series across five issues of Arable Farming looking at the pillars and practicalities of regenerative agriculture, Alice Dyer explores the hows and whys of getting started.
Making a start with agroecology
Although there is no set definition of regenerative agriculture, it is generally broken down into five principles of soil health: leaving the soil undisturbed, covered and fed with living roots; diversity of rotations, mixes and roots; and livestock integration.
Niels Corfield, who advises farmers on regenerative farming practices and runs courses on getting started in regenerative agriculture, says broadly speaking it is a set of outcomes which leaves the land in better ‘heart’ than when it was taken on. In arable scenarios, this should result in a physical change in the structure of the soil.
He says: “If you are not seeing that, generally speaking you’re probably not achieving those regenerative goals.”
Regenerative agriculture starts with the soil, but as improvements occur, crops’ water cycles, nutrient cycles, photosynthetic activity and resilience to stresses improve, and the landscape as a whole has better overall function.
“It’s a positive feedback loop you’re trying to set in motion. It’s basically trying to hack nature,” says Mr Corfield.
In the field Max Chenery, Leicestershire
JSince adopting regenerative agriculture practices on his farm, Leicestershire arable and beef farmer Max Chenery says changes to the condition of the soil have been easy to see.
“In the first year we did a worm count and the field that was direct drilled had five times more worms than cultivated fields. It’s not fast but you can start to see change straight away,” he says.
Mr Chenery’s journey started after joining the regenerative farming group BASE UK and, after speaking to other farmers, he realised despite his heavy clay soils, it was doable.
“I felt under pressure from the loss of the Single Farm Payment and knew we could make more money if we reduced cultivations and potentially reduced artificial inputs, plus this way of farming is much better for the environment.”
He got hold of a cheap secondhand tine direct drill and has gradually direct drilled more fields each year – he is hoping that all 560 hectares of arable land will be direct drilled this autumn if conditions allow.
“Ten years ago, this farm was either ploughed, or had a deep cultivation in front of the combination drill. Then maybe six years ago we started doing an early cultivation straight after the combine and just pressing and drilling with a disc drill, using weather to break down the seedbed rather than a power harrow. Then we went to just trying to direct drill a few fields. Since then, we’ve just done more and more.
“It’s not simple, and as we’ve transitioned the heavier land has been much harder. Whereas the light land is easy and we got the same yields straight away. On the heavy clay with high magnesium content, until we’ve got more organic matter and it’s functioning more effectively, it’s difficult because there’s not enough air in the soil,” Mr Chenery says.
“Cutting down on inputs has also been harder than I thought and I’ve realised it’s going to take time. I tried to jump the gun by just reducing fungicides before the soil was in better shape. If you have bad soil and just reduce your inputs, it doesn’t work.”
Also in this section
28 Concentrate on chemistry and cultural control 34 Looking ahead to Arable Weed Week 46 Figures to the fore for Cereals host
Max Chenery
Applications
As part of his aim to reduce fertiliser use by half over the next five years, Mr Chenery is trialling rhizobacteria applications, which interact with mycorrhizal fungi and help the plant to
Regenerative farming practices lead to better overall function of the whole landscape, says Niels Corfield.
What are the principles of regenerative agriculture?
rDo not disturb the soil rEnsure the soil surface is kept covered rKeep living roots in the soil rGrow a diverse range of crops rBring grazing animals back to the land
Source: Groundswell
access nutrients that are there but currently inaccessible.
The farm’s rotation of wheat, oilseed rape, barley, beans, rye, spelt and grass, has not needed to change a great deal. The grass for the farm’s beef herd adds important diversity to the rotation, but Mr Chenery says he is always on the lookout for another legume to add to the mix after struggling with peas and soya on his land.
Cover crops have also been a challenge, but Mr Chenery is confident that as soil health improves he will be able to do more in this area.
“Cover crops are a bit of a Catch 22 because we need to be fairly careful in that our soil isn’t great for spring crops because of the heavy clay. It will come though and hopefully as soil improves it will manage with spring cropping much better.”
Despite these challenges, Mr Chenery’s goal to reduce costs has been well and truly met, and without compromising yields.
“We haven’t seen a yield dip – there might be one at some point, but they are the same or better so far. In the second year our highest yield on the farm was direct drilled.
“Last year when it was terribly wet, we made a big mistake and in desperation we ploughed and power harrowed 150 acres of wheat, and the rest we direct drilled at the end of March. The yields on the direct drilled land were so much better and we’d spent nothing on it and hadn’t damaged the soil.
“Direct drilled spring crops have outperformed conventionally drilled winter crops and at a fraction of the price. Our gross margins have improved dramatically and if you go with book figures, you’re cutting out £100/ha of cultivations. If you get the same yield that makes a big difference.”
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Kickstarting the transition
JAs a consultant, Niels Corfield advises farmers at the start of the transition to earmark one field for intensive, fast-track trials for at least three years to see how agroecological approaches work in practice on their farm.
“Choose a field that you’re not dependent on for your livelihood and go all-in.
“This is opposed to at farm scale, where we recommend people work with incremental changes such as a 10% reduction in nitrogen and substituting synthetic granular fertilisers for foliar applied nutrition. These are changes that can be made at farm scale, but for the more aggressive approach we’d suggest to most people just do it at field scale.”
Although it is not imperative to integrate all five principles, how headfirst the farmer chooses to be, and the condition of the land to start with, will influence how long improvements to the landscape take.
Mr Corfield says: “If you’re starting from a low base point it’s possible you might see quite significant changes. The better the land is, the slower the change. It will also depend on how all-in you want to go.
“No-till is a step up, with cover crops another step up, but no-till with high diversity, spring-sown cover crops that grow through the warm part of the year are the ones that are a step change because we’re not limited to hardy plants or winter season soil conditions.
“Most people are on board with overwinter cover crops, but I would say that’s an incremental approach. They’re going in late, overwinter so there’s not a lot of activity in the soil because it’s so cold and the days are short. They’re more of a conservation strategy than a regeneration strategy.
“It’s about bringing as many of these practices together as much as you’re able to. Taking a year out of cropping is a big deal for a lot of people but there’s no question it massively ramps up biomass production, root growth, root exudation into the soil and aggregation created in the soil.
“For more marginal changes, looking to phase out and substitute synthetic nitrogen is really important, because so many of the issues we look at now are side effects of our fertility regimes.”
Even in veg crops, although eliminating cultivations may not be possible, there are ways their impact can be ‘massively
The speed at which change to the soil occurs depends on how 'all-in' the farmer is willing to go, says Niels Corfield.
reduced.’ The use of synthetic fertilisers and chemicals are a ‘low hanging fruit’ due to their effect on soil biology and plant health and should be viewed as a high priority target, Mr Corfield says.
Soil
“In a potato crop there’s a lot of soil movement, so I would suggest making sure you apply a carbon source whenever you’re moving soil.
“Disease susceptibility is driven by nitrate presence in the plant and low brix. A healthier crop in a healthier soil will need fewer fungicide passes. Monitor sap pH and brix to find out why the plants are being infected. By taking that detailed approach to agronomy, the fact you’ve got to move some soil to harvest them is probably okay in the grand scheme of things.”
While these marginal changes might sound relatively simple on paper, the biggest hurdle for growers is the knowledge gap, Mr Corfield adds.
“Regenerative agriculture is knowledge and information intensive, as opposed to input intensive. The main routes to delivery of regenerative practices at home are the ability to take on new information and assimilate that into your situation. But at the moment there is a knowledge gap. Most agronomy doesn’t extend to cultural practices and it is focused on inputs. If the operation is genuinely regenerative you won’t be dependent on inputs and a good amount of the ones you do use can be made on-farm.”
JAlthough policy seems to be pushing farmers down the regenerative farming route, those seeking new opportunities should take the long view and weigh up all their options.
The National Trust and the Blenheim Estate in Oxfordshire both recently highlighted, when offering tenancies, that applications with a focus on carbon and soil health would be favoured, showing a change of direction in the way large landowners are thinking.
Anthony Weston, CLM director and Groundswell consultant, says this is a sign of things to come and, if growers want to start ‘clawing back’ some of their Basic Payment Scheme through the Environmental Land Management scheme (ELMs), they will need to start thinking about adopting practices that regenerate the landscape in a more meaningful way.
“Lots of stewardship measures in the past have been confined to field plots and corners, particularly in arable settings. However, there’s plenty of scope for having more imaginative mixes, more cover crops and doing more in terms of introducing grazing. Basically, for thinking on a bigger scale.
Methods
“If there’s to be a sizeable uptake though, the new scheme is going to have to be very flexible. Regenerative agriculture is a broad term – everyone has their own take on it and there are many different ways of doing it. The people doing it now are great
ELMs must be flexible enough for a new farming era (continued from previous page)
at coming up with and trying new methods.”
Eligibility problems for current schemes are already hampering the adoption of better practices, which is why flexibility must be integral to the new system. Mr Weston has been involved with a number of ELMs test and trials, but is yet to be convinced that the next generation of policies will avoid the same issue of eligibility problems.
“There are already options in the current Countryside Stewardship scheme which are great for regenerative agriculture and soil health, such as overwinter cover crops. However, when you look at the detail, you get hit with eligibility criteria which say this option can only be used in Nitrate Vulnerable Zones (NVZ). For farms sat on the edge of an NVZ, we’re stifled because we’re going to be rotating it around land that’s in and out of NVZs so we can’t include that option at all.
Choices
“The GS4 herbal ley option has a really broad range of potential seed choices, such as deep-rooted plants and chicory which is great for grazing, but you can’t use it in a situation where there’s erosion or run-off risk, or where there are mapped historical features, despite archaeologists favouring a herbal ley because it’s direct drilled.
“The rules are not flexible and there’s no judgement involved – Defra need some expert input, rather than the process just being formulaic and driven by a computer system.
“Agriculture is at a crossroads and plenty of Anthony Weston
opportunities will be there for progressive farmers who wish to make sustainability even more integral to their thinking – potentially to the benefit of their farm businesses, the landscape and biodiversity.”
How does regenerative farming stack up financially?
JThe biggest ‘carrot’ for growers adopting regenerative agriculture practices will be the ability to reduce cost of production rather than increase yields, says Niels Corfield.
“We certainly won’t be seeing yield increases in the short term, but if we can see stable, cheap yields, which are achievable, then you can build a good business around that.”
According to analysis of benchmarking data by Land Family Business (LFB), growers using regenerative agriculture practices produced a tonne of wheat for £23/t less than the average UK farm in 2019.
Members of the Groundswell benchmarking group, who predominantly farm under no-till regenerative systems, saw yields for winter wheat range between 7.1t per hectare to 10.5t/ha, with gross margins
Groundswell vs conventional yields in 2019
2019 yield Average Average (tonne/hectare) no-till survey
Winter wheat 8.74 9.19
Oilseed rape 3.14 3
Winter barley 9.12 6.84
Output £/ha 865 1,169
Variable costs £/ha 380 497
Gross margin £/ha 485 672
of between £279/ha and £716/ha (see table).
The average winter wheat yield for more conventional systems in 2019 was 9.19t/ ha according to LFB’s benchmarking data for about 150 growers.
Yields
Gary Markham, director of farms and estates at LFB, who usually presents the figures at the annual Groundswell event, says: “The high yields [in the Groundswell data] show it can be done. We have been [collating] these numbers over the last few years and variation within the group is getting smaller and yield is increasing.”
The data found that although labour costs are on average £30/ha higher within the Groundswell benchmarking group, depreciation is almost £40/ha lower than the LFB benchmark.
Mr Markham adds: “Contracting costs had the biggest difference, with Groundswell farms averaging £17/ha and LFB farms averaging £133/ha.”
However, machinery costs remain ‘the elephant in the room’, Mr Markham says.
“The main driver of profit is machinery. LFB farmers have £900/ha tied up in machinery. Groundswell growers saved £249/ ha of working capital in comparison.”
On top of this, the Groundswell group’s average variable costs savings were £117/ha resulting in a total saving of £366/ha.
“On a 500ha farm, that is £183,000 of working capital that you do not need,” Mr Markham adds.
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