healthy soils

Finally the BBC through its Breakfast programme supposedly gives farming a serious airing with interviews with proper farmers and a Farmers’ Guardian journalist but....it f**king (yes you heard me right there!) does it again.... ....They build a set compete with straw bales and a litter floor...

Best thing I have learnt over the past few days while at the Sustainable Food Trust Conference has been from Professor Myles Allen of Oxford University. He was telling us about Methane and how the Government have got got their targets all wrong. Trust an academic to have the answers. What...

Just a thought before bedtime. To be clear, I am talking about after crop emergence, not just before harvest.

Written by John Swire Following the success of the first open day last year, Hutchinsons’ Brassica Demonstration Site day will be held at Bayholme Farm Old Leake, Boston, on July 11 in conjunction with the Allium & Brassica Centre, by kind permission of F Daubney & Sons. Visitors will have the...

Can anybody give an accurate comparison of the two as regards the Carbon they soak up?

We are considering converting to organic. Does anyone know a good consultant who could talk us through the process and offer advice.

The latest scare, now the wind is blowing away topsoil and releasing co2. Where does it blow it away to? the neighbours field or into space? My experience of 'soil erosion' is a little different cos if I leave something lying it's not long before it's buried itself. Maybe I'm unintentionally...

This might of been covered in the planned holistic grazing thread, but I have not been able to read all 6300 posts yet. I have been trying to work out what is best way to get most from cow slurry and cattle FYM. There is lots of nutrients in there that I wanted to get most out of itit witho...

Guys I do quite like this programme , they did a special on VEGAN food last night. An eye opener ,defiantly made me think ,what did every one else think?

dry Insecticides out of favour so no need to go thru ??

thoughts? In Suffolk we have only had a couple mm rain in the last month. Personally we have good disease resistance varieties. Can’t find any disease present. Didn’t get a T0 either. If it doesn’t rain do we need to put fungicides on?

Written by JohnSwire Spring is an ideal time to assess soils for potential structural or other soil health issues, but only do so when there is sufficient moisture for an accurate result, says leading agronomy firm Hutchinsons. Problems such as compaction can sometimes be misdiagnosed in dry...

As I said on another thread we are only guardians of the land. Now is the time to change systems for future generations. Less inputs Crop rotations with livestock Better use of manures&slurries Building soil OM Soil biology Discuss.

Dekalb News In the final article in our series, DEKALB trials manager, Anders Christensen pulls together harvest data from the company’s UK research network to assess how key varieties have performed where it matters. Wide performance variations reflect challenging season I’ve been...

ive just taken on some land which has been in grass (and weeds). Soil indexes are good. I would normally put something like 20. 10.10 in the seedbed but was wondering if urea would do the job as p&k are 3s and 4s? Any advice appreciated

Written by Rachel Martin Northern Ireland farmers have been invited to learn more about healthy soils at the next AHDB Monitor Farm meeting. Independent soil consultant Philip Wright will lead the session, demonstrating a range of soil tests farmers can use to assess their own soil health, and...

Written by JohnSwire The Campaign for the Farmed Environment (CFE) is to be relaunched as Championing the Farmed Environment to mark the development of the partnership since its inception a decade ago. Under the new title, CFE will continue to support farmers to deliver environmental benefits...

Last week i upgraded my phone from a Nokia nearly as old as me to the cheapest smartphone on the market so now i have the TFF App and find myself taking photos of everything. So i thought I'd start a dairy specific picture thread where people can post pics of cows, calves, bulls, parlours...