Is it time to bring back straw burning?
Blackgrass and slug populations are probably now the two major influences on winter cereal establishment on UK heavy soils.
Blackgrass and slug populations are probably now the two major influences on winter cereal establishment on UK heavy soils
With increased resistance to herbicides and no new active ingredients on the horizon alongside increasingly stringent stewardship of products such as metaldehyde, how long can growers sustain viable crop populations in areas where these two problems exist at such high levels?
The pressure on agronomists to protect the active ingredients currently available to growers through rotation, stacking of products, increased adjuvant use and employment of cultural techniques is massive. This season particularly, we are seeing crops in many areas of the UK which are suffering and having to be re-drilled and even destroyed through the lack of control now afforded.
“However, this was never the case before the banning of straw burning in 1993, “says Sarah Cowlrick, CEO of the AICC.
Sarah Cowlrick, CEO of the AICC
At Cereals this year, as the largest body of independent crop consultants in Europe, the AICC wishes to engage the whole industry in calling for a review on the practice and implications of straw/stubble burning. “Our aim is to open up the debate around the possibility of bringing back burning, whether that be under licence after proven need, or the option of controlled back burning. “
“It is time to revisit the research of the environmental impact of burning when weighed up against the possible reduction in pesticide use, for example burning will break dormancy of black-grass to maximise the efficacy of a stale seedbed, also the benefits gained from disease reduction as well as the carbon footprint of burning versus agchem applications,” she says.
To this end, the AICC has established four plots, two each of winter wheat and winter oilseed rape. Resistant black-grass was spread on all of the plots to simulate an in-field situation. Post-emergence herbicide treatments will have been applied on both the wheat and rape plots to mirror typical on-farm practice. Following this, cereal straw will be burnt on one of the wheat and one of the rape crops to demonstrate the effects of burning.
The wheat plots will also allow for the comparison of an SDHI fungicide programme versus a triazole-based programme.
The straw burning debate is the topic one of the Cereals Technical Workshops which takes place on Wednesday 10th June, and will be and supported by AICC agronomists. For more information on this workshop’ Strawburning – turning up the heat on blackgrass’ please go to the Cereals website www.cerealsevent.co.uk
