BASF real results - Wheat growers wanted

Clive

Staff Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Lichfield
Back in Spring 2016 I decided that the BASF claim that their T1 Adexar / T2 Librax could deliver £20 h/a extra margin over Aviator needed putting to the test in a rather public way, live on TFF. I felt it was a bold claim but to be fair BASF seemed pretty confident it would deliver and were up for the challenge from the start. The end result was not only a £57 h/a margin over Aviator, but they even beat the free hand of my independent agronomist by £8/ac.

Many of you have seen the video of me discussing the trial and holding my hands up (and even my ugly face in the farming press scaring small children!). Many of you have taken the mick too… so now it’s your turn ;-)

BASF wants to invite 50 farmers from its ‘Real Results Circle’ to test its Xemium fungicide products against any other SDHI you want to – in return for submitting your results.

To support those doing the trials, BASF has recruited independent partners, ADAS and AgSpace. This partnership means that you’ll get real insight into what works on your farm – and means unlike a lot of the trial results often put in front of us as farmers – there is no selectiveness of which results get published and which do not.

This is the way trials should be done IMO, field scale on real farms in real situations with all the constraints that can be brought into the mix, and it’s great that TFF members get the chance to be the farmers doing this. We should all be doing more on farm trials IMO and helping each other by sharing the results, exposing the rubbish products and recommending those that did as they claim.

There are just 50 places available for this but we would like 3 TFF members that feel they have the logistics and weighbridge etc to give solid results, and who will also create regular updates as the season progresses just as I did last year. The idea behind this is to keep it all honest and the debate over decision / timings open and lines drawn in the sand re product prices at the time as it happens. There’s not too much expected from you, just an update maybe with a few pictures at each spray timing and harvest maybe.

As part of the experience you’ll also receive a detailed, independent report on the crop with results, as well as yield and potential/barriers. You’ll also get an invite to the Real Results Conference where you’ll meet the other 49 farmers and get to deep dive into the outcomes with your peers.

Read more detail and register here: https://www.basfrealresults.co.uk/wheat/

BASF will make the final selection of the 50 farms as they want to ensure an even split across the country both location / conditions wise.

………………………..and if you fancy being one of the TFF 3, PM me and I will put your name forward! Again the choice will be down to BASF to try and get a representative split of UK farms.
 
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Clive

Staff Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Lichfield
Very brave of them, considering the new SDHI products available this year.

I thought they were brave last year ! But to be fair they were justified in being so on my trial

Clearly confident and prepared to stand by their claims which I think is commendable !

Farmer trials are the way ahead imo and I hope a few members here take them up on the offer / challenge !
 

Daniel

Member
Interesting, no weighbridge though.

We have a trials company here each year doing various replicated plots, always an interesting chat with the chap who runs it. I'm not really supposed to know what products are in the trials, but when a car load of people turn up and stomp across to the plot in jackets bearing their company logo you can have a fair guess!
 

Clive

Staff Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Lichfield
No weighbridge Kev only the greenstar mapping on combine so no proof. Would be interesting to see though.

Have no weighbridge, but will be delivering wheat into central store if that will be good enough.

as long as you can measure the yield in a credible way I guess thats ok, no matter if its your weigh bridge or one belonging to the central store or neighbour even
 

Clive

Staff Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Lichfield
Had a few Pm's saying the sign up process on the real results site isn't working smoothly - I have asked them to look at what might be the problem
 
I will gain someone more than £20/ha this year and it will not be by meddling with fungicides trying to determine which is best- (for which all the trial data has been laid out by NIAB anyway)

What I will actually do is, walk every field properly, discuss with the farmer how many grass weeds we saw, and as a result, we will save the cost of Atlantis or Broadway star being applied in some huge blanket amounting to a considerable cost. As a result he will keep more money in his pocket and we will not be continually pushing selection pressure at our grass weed populations.
 

Daniel

Member
I will gain someone more than £20/ha this year and it will not be by meddling with fungicides trying to determine which is best- (for which all the trial data has been laid out by NIAB anyway)

What I will actually do is, walk every field properly, discuss with the farmer how many grass weeds we saw, and as a result, we will save the cost of Atlantis or Broadway star being applied in some huge blanket amounting to a considerable cost. As a result he will keep more money in his pocket and we will not be continually pushing selection pressure at our grass weed populations.

Skimping on weed control here in the Fen is a risky business, best to throw the kitchen sink, in fact, the entire kitchen at it.
 

Jack Russell

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Holderness
I will gain someone more than £20/ha this year and it will not be by meddling with fungicides trying to determine which is best- (for which all the trial data has been laid out by NIAB anyway)

What I will actually do is, walk every field properly, discuss with the farmer how many grass weeds we saw, and as a result, we will save the cost of Atlantis or Broadway star being applied in some huge blanket amounting to a considerable cost. As a result he will keep more money in his pocket and we will not be continually pushing selection pressure at our grass weed populations.
Only to echo @Daniel. We are in a different part of the world but face huge pressure from weeds, esp BG. If you cut out a pass of herbicide you would save a good bit of money, you wouldn't be the first to try it and again you would not be the first to get replaced. There are ways of saving money but this BASF scheme showing the ROI is a far better place to focus your energy.
 

Clive

Staff Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Lichfield
I will gain someone more than £20/ha this year and it will not be by meddling with fungicides trying to determine which is best- (for which all the trial data has been laid out by NIAB anyway)

What I will actually do is, walk every field properly, discuss with the farmer how many grass weeds we saw, and as a result, we will save the cost of Atlantis or Broadway star being applied in some huge blanket amounting to a considerable cost. As a result he will keep more money in his pocket and we will not be continually pushing selection pressure at our grass weed populations.

I have a very good (independent) guy that does all that

However he got beat (just) in my trial last year much to my surprise

Talking of saving money it would have been REALLY interesting to run a supply agronomy plot alongside my trial last year !


There is nothing to loose for anyone doing this but potentially a lot to gain / learn about your farm and input regime and agronomic advice ! Maybe that is a scary concept for a a supply agronomist ? Last thing you want is a customer asking for certain product that might be lower margin or questioning and comparing prices of what actives he's actuallly getting a and at what price he's paying for them or importantly seeing what margin over costs he should be getting
 

Jack Russell

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Holderness
My agronomy is done on a supply basis and is with the 'dreaded' Agrii. Not wanting to open up the cost discussion, just mentioning this as we will be looking to have a go at this either with BASF or on our own. We do these kind of trials most years anyway to check what we are doing. Maybe I'm fortunate in having a supply agronomist that questions everything and so enjoys these kind of things.
 

Clive

Staff Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Lichfield
My agronomy is done on a supply basis and is with the 'dreaded' Agrii. Not wanting to open up the cost discussion, just mentioning this as we will be looking to have a go at this either with BASF or on our own. We do these kind of trials most years anyway to check what we are doing. Maybe I'm fortunate in having a supply agronomist that questions everything and so enjoys these kind of things.

if you run this trial it should certainly keep him on his toes and his pencil sharp this year !
 

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