Anyone growing crops with no fert ?

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Humble Village Farmer

Member
BASE UK Member
Location
Essex
Got a couple of experiments going on.

Spring oats and beans mixed with no fert, hopefully no inputs at all; and spring barley with only fym going on.

Grass or herbal ley never get any.

Doing a bit of clover understorey with w wheat for the first time. I'm not sure exactly what the plan is but some will get nothing just to see what happens. The original plan was to not use any fert. Work in progress.

I've made big cuts in fert use on ww and got some foliar urea planned.

I'm sure some or all of it could be disastrous, but it's the only way to see what works; the only advice you get is to buy more of whatever the advisor is selling.
 

Lowland1

Member
Mixed Farmer
We grow literally thousands of acres of crops without fertiliser. We aren’t organic and don’t believe in it either but it’s down to rotation and crop residues. All our broccoli,cabbage,peas and baby corn is grown without fertiliser. French Beans which are about 25 per cent of the rotation get a base dressing of 12. 46. 0 and trace elements of about 60 kg an acre. Potatoes get about 30 tonne an acre and 200 kgs of 12. 46. 0 . Overall we grow about 4000 acres of crops on 130 tonnes of artificial fertiliser. A four month wheat crop will yield 2300 kgs an acre on 50 kgs an acre of 40%N6%S. We’ve tried increasing fertiliser rates but we don’t get any extra yield for it.
 

DrWazzock

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Lincolnshire
We grow literally thousands of acres of crops without fertiliser. We aren’t organic and don’t believe in it either but it’s down to rotation and crop residues. All our broccoli,cabbage,peas and baby corn is grown without fertiliser. French Beans which are about 25 per cent of the rotation get a base dressing of 12. 46. 0 and trace elements of about 60 kg an acre. Potatoes get about 30 tonne an acre and 200 kgs of 12. 46. 0 . Overall we grow about 4000 acres of crops on 130 tonnes of artificial fertiliser. A four month wheat crop will yield 2300 kgs an acre on 50 kgs an acre of 40%N6%S. We’ve tried increasing fertiliser rates but we don’t get any extra yield for it.
Colonialism at its best. Plunder the natives resources then clear off.🤣
There’s no way 130 tonnes of fertiliser is maintaining indices on 4000 acres of crops.
But good luck to you.
It’s a bit more hand to mouth here on poorer soils farmed quite intensively. If we don’t add potash every year we are very soon near zero on the sand and output plummets. K index 1.2 is about as high as you can get it here. But we have no trouble maintaining phosphate. Index 2.5 average.
Whether it’s meat walking off or crops trailered off we have to replace it with something.
 

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Red Tractor drops launch of green farming scheme amid anger from farmers

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As reported in Independent


quote: “Red Tractor has confirmed it is dropping plans to launch its green farming assurance standard in April“

read the TFF thread here: https://thefarmingforum.co.uk/index.php?threads/gfc-was-to-go-ahead-now-not-going-ahead.405234/
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