Weeding the Gems

Charlotte White, crop physiologist at environmental and agricultural consultancy ADAS, reports from the ADAS Boxworth Open Day where science from ADAS is showcased alongside work funded by Defra and HGCA as well as private enterprises. It is a great opportunity for scientists, agronomists, farmers and seed/agrochemical representatives to network and discuss their needs and current work.

On the 3^rd of June ADAS Boxworth in Cambridgeshire opened its fields to welcome around 200 visitors. The rather wet morning, which made the behind the scenes setup soggy, dissipated in time for the mid-day opening and the afternoon was lovely and sunny. Visitors included farmers, agronomists, members of the seed and agrochemical industry, students and the farming press.

On arrival visitors were welcomed with a complementary hog roast and could register for BASIS and NRoSO points. At reception there was a demonstration of electrical weeding, which had a lot of interest, along with updates on the SCEPTRE project, the fertiliser value of anaerobic digestate and the HGCA stand. There were then two routes: wheat followed by oilseed rape or oilseed rape followed by wheat. The majority took the latter.

The oilseed rape field had a number of Defra, HGCA and commercially funded project demonstration plots. These included optimising seed rates/row widths, and the project I was demonstrating, which looks at precision applications of late foliar nitrogen fertiliser to increase yield and feed value of the rape-meal (CC: described in this UKBRC factsheet). Dr Steve Ellis spoke about pollen beetle thresholds and neonicotinoids, while Dr Faye Richie was on hand to answer questions on oilseed rape diseases relevant to this season and give updates on the latest findings from the pathology group. The industry variety and product demo plots appeared to have a high yield potential and formed the perfect environment to catch up with sponsors and collaborators. As you turned the corner in the field it was a surprise to find Ken Smith stood in a soil pit promoting good soil management on behalf of HGCA, a topic which always generates a lot of interest and gets people talking!

The wheat field was across the farm road and had a similar mix of government, levy and industry funded project demonstration plots, industry stands and variety and product plots. Prof Roger Sylvester-Bradley explained the yield enhancement network (YEN), an innovation competition to help growers break existing cereal yield records. The demonstration plots, testing ‘innovative ideas’ to maximise grain filling, included irrigation, reflective soil strips and plot cooling (if you are interested in entering the YEN competition, visit the website). The triticale demo plots also received a lot of attention and Dr Sarah Clarke and Dr Daniel Kindred were on hand to discuss the benefits of triticale – it out-yields wheat as a second cereal – and to promote the LearN project, which is using a novel on-farm approach to investigate nitrogen monitoring and management. Jonathan Blake was there to discuss the HGCA Fungicide Performance work, and had some interesting demonstration plots to show yellow rust and septoria tritici control. In addition to these and other interesting research demonstration plots, national ADAS experts in weed, pest and disease management were around to answer all manner of questions. Visitors were kept lingering long after the 4pm close.

For me, it was a long and invigorating day and great to talk to farmers and agronomists about their experiences with late application of foliar nitrogen and to provide an update on the latest project findings, as well as seeing what everyone else in ADAS has been working on. Don’t worry if you missed it, keep your eye out for flyers for future open days!

Image credit: Charlotte White