Arable

Tong invests in new paint facilities for the highest quality finish

As part of an ongoing growth and development programme, Tong Engineering has invested in the latest powder coating and shot blasting systems at its new manufacturing plant in Spilsby. Situated on the company’s seven-acre site, the first-phase building has been kitted out with a new powder coating spray booth, water wash extraction and a large drying oven, alongside a new shot blast unit to prepare materials prior to painting. Neil Martin, Operations Director at Tong Engineering, says “Our new metalpreparation and paint facilities form a key function within the new factory, and are already proving to drive efficiencies. The advancements in application methods, temperature control and cycle-time have developed significantly, ensuring that the process is not only more efficient, but the appearance of the end product is consistently to the highest standards in paint durability and finish.” The new shot blasting unit uses a powerful technique to clean the metal’s surface and create a quality finish which guarantees optimum adhesion of paint. This steel preparation process is the first stage of a 3-part paint system at Tong, in which metal is first shot-blasted, followed by the application of a durable rustinhibiting primer which is then finished with a premium quality top-coat, before it is cured at high temperatures. “The spacious new drying oven can accommodate large equipment modules with a much higher bake temperature than our previous system,” explains Neil. “It also delivers a fast bake-cycle which means much quicker turnaround of the complete painting process.” “As an industry leading manufacturer, our investment in a purpose-built production facility, featuring the latest painting and shot blasting plant, gives Tong the edge on quality and capacity. The finish of Tong equipment is designed to last, giving our customers the confidence that their investment in Tong handling solutions will provide optimum longevity and performance for many years to come.” For more information on Tong's latest range of handling equipment visit www.tongengineering.com.

BURGUNDY BROCCOLI ANNOUNCES L AUNCH OF PURPLE SPROUTING BROCCOLI

Burgundy Broccoli, the brand that launched the UK's first whole head purple broccoli which can be eaten in entirety, either raw or cooked, has announced the development of a new variant which will be available for shoppers to purchase in 2021. The Burgundy variant will now also be available in a purple sprouting broccoli (PSB) from spring 2021 following a hugely successful trial period in nationwide retailers, with rapid sales growth of PSB since the introduction of the product last year. Purple broccoli products are known for the heightened anti-oxidant compounds compared to their green counterparts. The new PSB will also benefit from the superlative tenderness of the Burgundy variant, making it a delicious and versatile vegetable product. Produced by seed developers Elsoms, based in Lincolnshire, the PSB will be grown in the UK from spring right through to November, allowing UK shoppers to access British-grown quality brassicas throughout the year. Dave Clay, Brassica Crop Manager at Elsoms who developed Burgundy Broccoli and the new PSB, says: "As a nation, we are passionate about quality crops and produce, and I think the response to our PSB really reflects that. We've seen sales of PSB units double, since introducing the product last Autumn. "It's got a slightly sweeter taste profile than your average broccoli, and it's beautifully tender making it the perfect veg for a midweek dinner or a weekend treat." The Purple Sprouting Broccoli will be available from Waitrose and Co-op at an RRP of £1.80 per pack. For more information about Burgundy Broccoli and some recipe inspiration, please visit www.burgundybroccoli.com.

Engage Agr o’s Bio - Chel Ca The Solution to Calcium Deficiency?

This time of year, many crops suffer from vari‐able transpiration and new root development which limits calcium uptake resulting in re‐duced quality produce and lower yields. It’s at this point growers reach for foliar support to supplement calcium, yet time after time growers still see low levels of calcium in crops even after a possible full programme of applications. The reason for this is based in the nutrient itself. Cal‐cium is the largest of nutrient molecules and is highly charged as Ca++ as well as being highly reactionary. So, in soils it may bond itself out of availability and in sprays and nutrient solutions it will reacts with other nu‐trients and plant protection compounds to create insol‐uble precipitates which again inhibit its availability to the plant. In soil, it has to compete for uptake with nutrient cations such as potassium, nitrogen and magnesium which plants find far easier to take up and it needs new roots for optimal uptake as older roots are less effective at accessing calcium. This can be a problem for peren‐nial crops such as tree fruit as they mature. Once in the plant calcium is only mobile in the xylem vessels (arter‐ies of the plants vascular system) and not the phloem (veins of plants vascular system). Calcium transport in the vascular system is controlled by transpiration, the process of water movement through a plant and its evaporation from aerial parts, such as leaves, stems and flowers. If transpiration is affected in any way, cal‐cium reinforcement drops. Once laid down by the plant the calcium remains static as it then cannot be moved around the plant. It is however, lost during the transpir‐ation process. For years companies have been developing foliar cal‐cium products in an effort to enhance foliar penetration and assimilation by making stronger products, products with organic materials to aid leaf penetration and tech‐nologies to stimulate greater assimilation, all with vari‐able degrees of success. Mark Horner, lead agronomist at Engage Agro has been responsible for helping to de‐velop several of Europe’s leading calcium foliar sprays; he explains why foliar calcium, even with current tech‐

| Arable nologies, can be so variable in its effects. “There are three main issues to overcome with foliar calcium. This first is the size of the calcium molecule. As an ion calcium is very large and so it is very diffi‐cult to get it through the surface of leaves. Nutrient solutes can pass through localised pathways called ‘ectodesmata’ and these are very small. Therefore, calcium finds it very difficult to pass thought these pathways. They can, however, be stimulated by cer‐tain organic compounds to open up wider to allow more calcium through, which is why you see many foliar calcium’s with organic elements to their formu‐lation. The second is that in nearly all cases the calcium ad‐ded to foliar is in the form of a compound salt, which means it is attached to an anion such as nitrate, chloride, sulphate, phosphate etc. The leaf produces a negative charge and creates an electrochemical gradient to increase the movement of cations and water molecules. The flow of cations through the cuticle membrane is much easier than that of anions, with studies show‐ing this to be up to 100 times higher. Anions are neg‐atively charged so are repelled to an extent and will, when in a foliar calcium, reduce overall efficacy. The final issue is tank mixability, foliar calcium’s are highly reactive and so growers need to be really careful when mixing other nutrients, biostimulants and plant protection products with calcium. We often see calcium being added to multiple product foliar mixes which creates a reaction, forming calcium compounds rendering a percentage of the applied calcium unavailable to the crop.” Engage Agro’s extensive knowledge of calcium helped them create their foliar calcium, Bio-Chel Ca. They needed to create a product that was pure cal‐cium, which stimulates leaves to accept it and would not react in spray tanks. The only way to do this was to use a chelate. Standard calcium chelates are ex‐pensive and are known to have a poor level of safety on leaf, so the only way forward was to create their own chelate using a unique organic chelator. The result was Bio-Chel Ca 10%; a 100% chelated cation so it is unhindered by anions during foliar ap‐plication and as the chelation is organic and contains multiple organic compound and sugars, is used by the plant at the highest rates possible. The chelation is strong so it prevents the calcium from actively re‐acting with other elements and salts or plant protec‐tion products, so it will sit in spray tanks without fear of reaction. This allows Bio-Chel Ca to be mixed with sulphate, phosphate/phosphite fertilisers and all known pesticides to maximise its flexibility in use and removes a headache from the grower. Bio-Chel Ca also contains natural surface-active polymers which ensures even calcium distribution over the leaf surface without the need for additional adjuvants. The natural polymers ensure the spray re‐mains hygroscopic after application thereby holding the calcium in a water-soluble form on the leaf so that it can diffuse and penetrate the leaf even after the spray application has dried. The product is also safe to use at any time of the year and on all crops. But does all this come at a cost? Apparently not. Ac‐cording to Mark Horner, “when we created Bio-Chel Ca one of the main drivers was to allow its use on all crops with multiple applications, so the price needed to reflect this. It is highly cost effective at just £2.60 per acre per application. We think Bio-Chel Ca is the best calcium source in the world and urge all growers to try it and see the difference”.

New rapid test kit to pr eser ve phosphate supplies

It is reported that global phosphate sources may only last 30-100 years at current usage rates, ending the supply of phosphate fertilisers - but a new rapid in-field soil test kit could help farmers to more precisely utilise this valuable nutrient. Designed as part of the Phosfield project, funded by ERDF’s Agri-Tech Cornwall programme, the test kit provides precise results within just 20 minutes - a massive improvement on the several-day turnaround by laboratories. "Most farmers test their soils for phosphate every three to five years," explains Dr Susan Tandy, soil scientist at Rothamsted Research. "They usually take several samples from across the field and amalgamate them to get an average reading." However, the level of phosphate will vary across fields, and more accurate GPSlocated testing would enable farmers to apply fertiliser at variable rates - and thereby achieve more consistent yields. More importantly, phosphate availability can change over time and depends on the soil type, so by testing more frequently and knowing the soil type farmers can be even more accurate in their fertiliser application, she adds. The test has been three years in development, and has been trialled in Ghana, where it could have significant benefits. "The technique would be extremely useful in developing countries as they have limited lab access to test their soils, meaning the application of expensive fertiliser is both financially risky and may not match crop requirement," explains Dr Tandy. Having nailed down the scientific process using Cornish soil samples, the researchers worked with Vital Spark Creative to produce an analytical kit which would be relatively easy to use in the field. "There are lots of different elements to the kit; if you're not a chemist it's pretty involved," says Chris Booker, director at Vital Spark Creative. "We tried to make it user friendly, so that farmers can easily use it on the farm." So how does it work? "You put a small soil sample into the bottle and mix it with an extraction solution before passing it through a filter," he explains. "You then add various chemicals to get the final result, which is analysed in a colorimeter so the result is easy to read." The results are very precise; but can also be translated into a phosphate index if desired. "The attraction of it, beyond speed, is that this test may well prove more accurate for different soil types," says independent agronomist Tim Martyn. "The phosphate fertiliser recommendations in the Nutrient Management Guide (RB209) are not soil type specific. Given the limited world phosphate supplies, more accurate measurement means we can be much more efficient with these resources, particularly in developing countries. It's really exciting." While precision farming techniques like soil and crop scanning and conductivity tests enable variable rate nitrogen applications, analysing phosphate will likely always require a physical soil sample to be taken, says Dr Tandy. This test could therefore form the basis of more efficient applications across the UK and further afield. "By not over-fertilising, farmers will be saving money and potentially reducing phosphate loss to watercourses, which causes damaging pollution via eutrophication and resultant algal blooms." The test is also extremely cost effective; once the kit is acquired, each test costs pence rather than several pounds for a laboratory analysis. Although it's not yet commercially available, the team are seeking additional funding to bring it to market, and hope to undertake further research to produce tailored fertiliser recommendations for different crops and soil types.

| Arable ONE THIRD OF UK OSR CROPS AT RISK FROM TURNIP YELLOWS VIRUS

Don’t ignore threat from Turnips Yellows Virus OSR growers should be aware of the risk from TuYV as results from a recent survey confirms that one third of susceptible UK crops are infected, with severe implications on yields, warns plant breeders Limagrain

UK. Turnips yellows virus (TuYV) is transmitted by aphids and it is believed that 70% of the most common aphid, peach potato aphids (Myzus persicae) carry it. Work carried out at Brooms Barn a decade ago, showed a 30% yield penalty where levels of the virus were high and infection occurred early in the crop’s life. Since 2015, plant breeders Limagrain have led the way in monitoring levels of TuYV in non-resistant or susceptible crops across the whole of Europe, including the UK. Leaf samples are taken both in the spring and autumn and tested using the standard Elisa test. “We’ve mapped the incidence of TuYV from the UK to Ukraine and seen it build over the years,” notes William Charlton, arable marketing manager for Limagrain. “We’re getting to a situation where TuYV is now endemic across Europe, and no longer confined to hotspots.” Sampling is carried out twice during the growing season, with an initial smallscale survey conducted in the autumn, followed by extensive testing carried out in early spring. Results from this spring’s sampling confirm that one third of all the UK’s non-resistant oilseed rape crops sampled were infected with TuYV. Samples were taken from 26 locations across the British Isles. The highest rates of infection, which were as much as 81-100%, were reported in the Midlands. As would be expected, high rates of infection of 66-80%, were reported from the south-east, but similarly high levels of infection were also detected as far north as the borders, and as far west as Wales. One third of non-resistant OSR crops across Yorkshire, Lincolnshire, Wales/ Shropshire were also infected. “Five years ago we would not have seen these cases in the north and west, which just goes to show how TuYV is becoming increasingly widespread, and is now endemic in the UK OSR crop, irrespective of region.” The link between high numbers of aphids in the autumn and corresponding levels of infection is clear, explains Mr Charlton. “Infection usually occurs in September to October when aphids are still flying; the earlier a crop is infected, the more severe the symptoms tend to be with a harsher yield penalty as the plants have less seeds/pods.” “Early drilled crops that are more open, corresponding with mild autumnal conditions, are at the highest risk.” “As control of aphids has become increasingly difficult, numbers have increased, with a subsequent build up of TuYV inoculum in the environment.” “Once an aphid is infected, it is infected for life – if an uninfected aphid feeds on an infected plant, the aphid becomes infected and so the cycle continues.” “Infected plants produce fewer side branches, pods, and seeds per pod. It’s confined to the phloem, so potentially robs the plant of resources that would be fed to the roots. “But you often don’t see severe symptoms, which is why TuYV often goes undetected. Today’s challenge is that it has become increasingly difficult to control early infection with the loss of neonicotinoid seed treatments, and getting the timings right for spray’s is very difficult.” “Genetic resistance is by far the best way forward.” The value of genetic resistance to TuYV has been well proven since Limagrain launched the first TuYV resistant variety, Amalie, back in 2014. Initially the genetic resistance came with a yield lag, but innovative breeding has overcome this and today, Limagrain TuYV-resistant varieties, both hybrids and conventionals, top the AHDB Recommended List, confirming the value of the resistance in protecting against detrimental yield loss from TuYV. Mr Charlton notes that varieties carrying TuYV resistance also play an important role in IPM, as there is less reliance on insecticides which are challenging to time correctly. “Over the last few years, in areas where the risk of TuYV infection is very high, we have seen the uptake of TuYV varieties to be as much as 80% of the total crop.” “There’s such a strong argument for growing a TuYV-resistant variety, why wouldn’t you?” Limagrain’s top yielding varieties all carry TuYV resistance: