Direct Driller Magazine

Welcome to our Biostimulant Supplement, exclusive to Direct Driller magazine. I hope you enjoyed reading our last supplement on Adjuvant Technology and it proves useful as we head into the spring spraying season. In this issue we explore the valuable role of plant biostimulants in helping farmers adapt their agricultural systems to an increasingly volatile climate, while enhancing food production sustainably.

As we come out of 2023 with some of the driest, hottest and wettest months on record, the effects of climate change feel ever more real. Building stronger, healthier, more...

With harvest either underway or on the horizon for most growers in the U.S., now is a good time to prepare for your soil sampling program.

Most universities and the NRCS recommend taking soil samples in the off-season, after the last crop harvest, and before the next cash crop is planted. Mississippi State University Extension advises collecting samples 3-6 months before planting, to allow any lime recommendations to react and change the pH.

But before you can grab your soil probe and head out to the field, you need to understand best soil sampling practices and have a plan of action for collecting your samples, so you can accurately capture the soil chemistry...

Written by Ralph Early

''No one will protect what they don't care about; and no one will care about what they have never experienced.'' David Attenborough

Not so long ago, wildlife in Britain was so much more abundant than it is today. Back in the 1960s, in early summer, one could walk the fields of most counties from Land’s End to John O’Groats and quite literally trip over wildlife: rabbits, hares, pheasants, partridge, and many other species hiding in knee-high grass. A stroll through meadows carpeted with stunningly beautiful wild flowers would fill the air with butterflies, as once disturbed they departed the sweet nectar in one location to alight on blossoms in another. At night the same meadows would be filled with moths, swarming...

Animal impact + carbon source followed by full recovery period. Feeding soil biology with a carbon source stirred and trampled by a group of ruminant animals is the gold standard for building healthy soil.

Sustainable Food Trust


At our recent conference, 'Farming and Climate Change: Towards Net Zero Carbon Emissions', regenerative farmer and author of the book 'Call of the Reed Warbler' (2017), Charles Massy provided an eve of conference address, looking at, amongst other things, the critical role that ruminants play in landscape preservation and restoration. Charles Massy is a seminal voice in regenerative agriculture, which foregrounds ‘ecological literacy’ as a key tool. It looks to nature as a guide, seeking always to support and regenerate ecosystems. Massy is uncompromising in his conviction that healthy food comes from healthy landscapes and that modern industrial...

Dr Jon Knight, AHDB Head of Crop Protection assesses the shifting political emphasis on environmental protection and the future for Integrated Pest Management

What is Integrated Pest management (IPM)?

The Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations definition is as follows: Integrated Pest Management (IPM) means the careful consideration of all available pest control techniques and subsequent integration of appropriate measures that discourage the development of pest populations and keep pesticides and other interventions to levels that are economically justified and reduce or minimize risks to human health and the environment. IPM emphasises the growth of a healthy crop with the least possible disruption to...

Written by Angela Lovell, originally published in No-Till Farmer USA in November 2018

Choosing a cover crop cocktail is only a start, says Adam Daugherty, as managing carbon-to-nitrogen ratios and adapting planting strategies play a big role in success. There are many variables for growers to consider when they’re implementing cover-crop mixes into their no-till rotation — including mix design, carbonto-nitrogen (C:N) ratios, cash crop goals, termination strategies and biomass management.

“The goals will be different for everyone and will change from field to field, with changing conditions and with time,” says NRCS district conservationist Adam Daugherty. Here are strategies for thinking through some of these important decisions...