The 2021/22 AHDB Recommended List sees several high yielding varieties introduced in the wheat and barley groups. For maximum potential yield to be achieved, crops need to be provided with the correct balance of essential nutrients throughout the growing season.
Improving Nitrogen fertiliser Use Efficiency (NfUE) will be one of the most important ways in which UK growers can improve their business productivity in the future.
The single most important decision you can make to maximise your NfUE lies in the type of fertiliser you choose in the first place, says CF Fertilisers’ head agronomy Dr. Sajjad Awan. Whilst good management can help finetune the effectiveness of your applications, start with the wrong Nitrogen source and you’ll be locked into lower levels of NfUE with little you can do to lift it, he says.
“NfUE is essentially a measure of how much of the Nitrogen applied ends up in the crop. “In simple terms, if you apply 100kg N/ha and only 50kg N/ha is taken up by your crop, you will have an NfUE of 50% and half of the N you have paid for has gone somewhere other than into your crops as intended “Improving NfUE benefits your crop, your pocket and the wider environment.
Whether you are looking at it from the perspective of clean air, reducing your carbon footprint or increasing production efficiency, loss of N from the cropping system is a major problem.”
Clearfield® is a unique system for oilseed rape that combines hybrid seed varieties and high-quality BASF herbicides for the most effective way to approach weed control in OSR.
To achieve the maximum potential yield, crops need to be provided with the correct balance of essential nutrients throughout the growing season.
High yields come from achieving the correct leaf and shoot numbers, maintaining a green leaf canopy that intercepts 90% of the light and through achieving an increased number of grain ears and large grain sizes.
That's easier said than done when dealing with a crop exposed to the elements and other factors that may limit potential. However, a significant factor is a balanced crop nutrition programme, including the right levels of nitrogen, potassium, phosphate, and sulphur.
Energy and protein feed costs look set to remain high through the remainder of the year, so maximising clamp fill and forage quality will matter more than ever. As you will be aware however, fertiliser pricing and availability on farm are proving challenging, so what are your options?
Follow our wildflower growing guide to help create a bee and wildlife haven. Wildflowers have proven to benefit farmland such as improving the wildlife on your farm by improving habitats for pollinators, farmland birds and other wildlife.
The UK Government will continue to offer Countryside Stewardship agreements in2022 and 2023.
Countryside Stewardship will eventually be replaced with the new Environmental Land Management (ELM) scheme. This will follow trialling and testing and a national pilot involving farmers and land managers during the next few years.
Inclusion of spring cereal crops in a rotation can be economically beneficial, providing either cash crops or valuable home-grown starch and energy feed sources. However, to see a good return on investment, it’s important to achieve maximum potential yields and this requires attention to detail when it comes to a nutrient plan.
With cropping decisions being made, now is a great time to carry out soil sampling to plan your fertiliser regime for the coming season.
Good yields may have results in greater nutrient offtake which will need to be replenished to ensure your subsequent crops can reach their full potential. By soil sampling now you can also gauge whether there is a requirement for an autumn application of fertiliser.
The 2021/22 AHDB Recommended List sees several high-yielding varieties introduced in the wheat and barley groups. For maximum potential yield to be achieved, crops need to be provided with the correct balance of essential nutrients throughout the growing season.
