Direct drilling trials to highlight cost savings
A farm consultancy in Northamptonshire has joined forces with a national arable company to organise farm scale crop demonstrations to help growers cut production costs.
Mzuri Pro-til – One of the drills under onservation
Arable farmers have been hard hit with fluctuating grain prices and rocketing fuel costs and with zero tillage being one way to reduce crop production costs, Berrys and Frontier are putting on field-scale demonstrations to see if direct drilling can do the job.
The plots have been established at Lamport Hall near Kettering, a 2000-acre estate in Northamptonshire advised by Berrys on behalf of a charitable trust.
The trust has an educational remit to safeguard and develop the land and estate for future generations and Berrys in conjunction with Frontier have been organising small scale wheat and oilseed rape variety demonstration plots for the past five years.
“With such an excellent site available to us at Lamport, this year we are extending the plots to compare direct drilling options as a means of reducing establishment costs, a major expense on farms these days,” explained Berrys’ practitioner George Stanley who advises the site along with colleagues James Fulton and Jon Stables.
“This will be a five year site to really show the long term effects of direct drilling. We will have four direct drills under demonstration, each covering a hectare plot starting this year with oilseed rape then alternating with winter wheat.”
The drills under observation are the Claydon Hybrid, Sumo Versadrill Plus, Mzuri Pro-til and the Great Plains Spartan. The oilseed rape variety is PR46W21 hybrid OSR.
“We are looking to have three open day events per season for the next four years so that farmers can see for themselves the long term effects of the different treatments throughout the season.”
The aim of the project is to improve awareness of direct drilling, highlighting the benefits and issues of moving down the direct drilling route as currently only about five per cent of farmers in the area are direct drilling.
“Direct drilling can offer a way to improve gross margins, reducing costs, labour and time pressures. In some cases it can also improve soil structure,” George said.
“This will be the first prolonged study of continuous direct drilling in the area and will highlight any improvements in soil condition and water management on the site,” he said.
“We will monitor compaction, yield, weed and plant count, cost of the different drilling systems and work out the gross margins, comparing cost versus yield.”
SOYL, a firm specialising in precision farming, has soil mapped the entire farm and will supply variable rate nitrogen application recommendations. The benefit of this is that plots receive exactly what they need; avoiding waste in some areas and over application in others.
“Standard flat rate seed rates will also be compared with variable seed rates. Some less favourable soils might need up to 40 per cent more seed to establish an optimum plant population compared to other lighter areas,” George explained.
Arable farmers in the area can look forward to the first demonstration mid spring, 2013.
“This is a way of giving our clients the confidence to take advantage of favourable and modern techniques to maximise their gross margins,” George added.
For further details contact George Stanley at Berrys’ Kettering office on 01536 532394 email George.stanley@berrybros.com
