Biological Brews

ajd132

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Suffolk
Interesting.
Are you using FYM or other soil amendment?
I would have saved £360 Ha on WW and £180 Ha on SW on those inputs.
It has been proven that 200kg N doubles your yield compared with no N, and that would be in trials where there was N applied the previous year, or it was in a legume. Organic production would be about half conventional yields.
I'm not sure what your average yields were in those years, but I'm not sure I would have got 7t/ha milling spec WW with zero N, or 6.35 t/ha SW - but perhaps I should try a small field or a tramline. Might work best with spring barley. The only input I might have to apply in some fields would be Mn.
A good trial would be only herbicides; herbicides and half other inputs; and both compared to normal treatment.
It is possible to grow decent yields with much less N than is the convention, but a serious long term approach to soil health, microbial, fungal and insect life needs to be focused on. Large amounts of ammonium nitrate is the main thing stopping conventional farming from cutting down on inputs and improving the soil ecology. I firmly believe that over use of nitrogen drives all our weed, disease and pest issues on farm.
 

Hjwise

Member
Mixed Farmer
Azotic technologies had a piece on Farming Today on Monday about their bacterial spray that half’s the need for N to achieve the same yield. Currently being used in US. An underwhelming announcement for a a major breakthrough?? (Wheat, corn etc fixing N from the air).
 

Simon C

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Essex Coast
Interesting.
Are you using FYM or other soil amendment?
I would have saved £360 Ha on WW and £180 Ha on SW on those inputs.
It has been proven that 200kg N doubles your yield compared with no N, and that would be in trials where there was N applied the previous year, or it was in a legume. Organic production would be about half conventional yields.
I'm not sure what your average yields were in those years, but I'm not sure I would have got 7t/ha milling spec WW with zero N, or 6.35 t/ha SW - but perhaps I should try a small field or a tramline. Might work best with spring barley. The only input I might have to apply in some fields would be Mn.
A good trial would be only herbicides; herbicides and half other inputs; and both compared to normal treatment.

The first wheat was after 3 years of lucerne and had 2 tons/acre of home made compost. Did 7.6 t/ha
Second year spring wheat had nothing on it and only did 4.2 t/ha, but then my other s wheat, conventionally grown was rubbish anyway.
I am trying to get the zero N start point of a nitrogen response graph three quarters of the way up, instead of half way as in your 200 kgN example with enhanced biological activity.

I can guarantee that no biological brew would make any difference to these crops, which is what this thread is about. I already have massive amounts of mycorrhizae across the whole farm simply by not cultivating and cutting inputs.
 

Simon C

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Essex Coast
It is possible to grow decent yields with much less N than is the convention, but a serious long term approach to soil health, microbial, fungal and insect life needs to be focused on. Large amounts of ammonium nitrate is the main thing stopping conventional farming from cutting down on inputs and improving the soil ecology. I firmly believe that over use of nitrogen drives all our weed, disease and pest issues on farm.

I am having a real struggle with this idea ATM. Cut N and you stop burning organic matter, cut down other inputs and your OM starts building. I have enough evidence now from 63 OM tests over 20 years to say that I am sequestering about 1 tonne of carbon per hectare a year. But organic matter is not just carbon, it has a C:N ratio of 10:1, so I am also sequestering 100 Kgs N/Ha. That is N that is coming from the plants in the form of root exudates, from biological fixation and fertiliser. Most N rate calculations add in 10 or 20 Kgs N from soil mineralisation, but on my system I have the opposite, I need to take away 100 Kgs N. There is an argument that I should up N rates by 100 Kgs to cover loss to the soil, but of course doing that would mean burning up more OM that I am putting down.
 

snarling bee

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Bedfordshire
I have no doubt that we can manage on a whole lot less inputs than we have been using in the recent past, long term analysis of OSR fungicide trials have proven that. It does rely on attitude to risk for many growers, and attitude towards the environment and long term soil health and sustainability. I farm for 8 customers, some of whom the arable income is their main or only source of revenue, or they just want the most 'profit' 'today' for whatever reason (one for example is in his late 60's and is the last tenant). In these instances it is not always easy to start taking more risks than farming already is, with other people's livelihoods. perhaps if ELMS is going to pay for some of these risks then that is the direction we shall go.
 

ajd132

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Suffolk
I have no doubt that we can manage on a whole lot less inputs than we have been using in the recent past, long term analysis of OSR fungicide trials have proven that. It does rely on attitude to risk for many growers, and attitude towards the environment and long term soil health and sustainability. I farm for 8 customers, some of whom the arable income is their main or only source of revenue, or they just want the most 'profit' 'today' for whatever reason (one for example is in his late 60's and is the last tenant). In these instances it is not always easy to start taking more risks than farming already is, with other people's livelihoods. perhaps if ELMS is going to pay for some of these risks then that is the direction we shall go.
Agree and as you know I am in the same boat.
ELMS is not even going to be worth factoring in t long term business strategy from what they have announced in the last couple days. £30-40/ha max is what I have been thinking for a while now.
 

Hjwise

Member
Mixed Farmer
I am having a real struggle with this idea ATM. Cut N and you stop burning organic matter, cut down other inputs and your OM starts building. I have enough evidence now from 63 OM tests over 20 years to say that I am sequestering about 1 tonne of carbon per hectare a year. But organic matter is not just carbon, it has a C:N ratio of 10:1, so I am also sequestering 100 Kgs N/Ha. That is N that is coming from the plants in the form of root exudates, from biological fixation and fertiliser. Most N rate calculations add in 10 or 20 Kgs N from soil mineralisation, but on my system I have the opposite, I need to take away 100 Kgs N. There is an argument that I should up N rates by 100 Kgs to cover loss to the soil, but of course doing that would mean burning up more OM that I am putting down.
The population of the world has ballooned from below 1b to nearly 10b in a few hundred years. Largely the Haber Bosch process? Whatever way, it’s based on the sun shining over millions of years producing what is now being used up pretty quickly with some unfavorable consequences. I’m not sure how any farming system can sustain this population long term.

Edit:
Hang on, I’m going to do a bit more reading on Fukuoka and may emend my previous comment...
 
Last edited:

Simon C

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Essex Coast
I have no doubt that we can manage on a whole lot less inputs than we have been using in the recent past, long term analysis of OSR fungicide trials have proven that. It does rely on attitude to risk for many growers, and attitude towards the environment and long term soil health and sustainability. I farm for 8 customers, some of whom the arable income is their main or only source of revenue, or they just want the most 'profit' 'today' for whatever reason (one for example is in his late 60's and is the last tenant). In these instances it is not always easy to start taking more risks than farming already is, with other people's livelihoods. perhaps if ELMS is going to pay for some of these risks then that is the direction we shall go.
Agree, all farms have different financial pressures. I purposely gave up contracting work and payed off all loans and overdraft so that I was only answerable to myself. This allowed me to experiment and take risks, when something went wrong, so what, learn and try again next year.
 

Alistair Nelson

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
E Yorks
Azotic technologies had a piece on Farming Today on Monday about their bacterial spray that half’s the need for N to achieve the same yield. Currently being used in US. An underwhelming announcement for a a major breakthrough?? (Wheat, corn etc fixing N from the air).

tried some 2 years ago along with something else that worked in a similar manner. didn’t do a great job for us either of them if I’m honest but I think it is very dependent on weather and temp after application as well as how it’s stored etc. But definitely would discount it in the future there’s a lot of N in the air that’s there to be used.
 

martian

DD Moderator
BASE UK Member
Location
N Herts
Just a thought, I’m ready to be shot down.
Why do we need a rotation? If my crop consistently delivering the best gross margin is wheat why don’t I keep going? Will the soil fungi not over time adapt to support this crop rather than disrupting it by planting a multitude of others?

BB
Elaine Ingham will back you up with this idea. We had a challenge on here a few years back, but if anyone succeeded with it then they kept it quiet.
 

JD-Kid

Member
Just a thought, I’m ready to be shot down.
Why do we need a rotation? If my crop consistently delivering the best gross margin is wheat why don’t I keep going? Will the soil fungi not over time adapt to support this crop rather than disrupting it by planting a multitude of others?

BB
ummmmm a very interesting view point and one I have thought on but from a diffrent angle
old grassland. thats been in acid loveing plants. etc for ummmm some of the history books say some cropping years ago here 110-130 years ago so over that thing. the soils and soils life would of changed to provide for. those. plants much like a forest
some of the fungi etc will not be suited to the newer. crops or out compete any newer. fungi etc added
a few say promote the soil life thats there. problem is it could be all wrong for. the plants wanting to grow and throwing good money after bad
 

BenAdamsAgri

Member
BASE UK Member
Location
Oxfordshire
I can see some products have benefits such as a range of nutrients or fulvic and humic acid, so a more nutrition farming approach.

Still very unsure about bugs in jugs and brewing. I especially can't see any benefit of doing this if you're following the five soil health principles either.

Molasses may help some people but i think the majority of farms would be looking to increase fungi rather than bacteria.

Like you said if you're going to place microbes onto your land i'd of thought you want the compost to come from your land to then use as a compost tea or innoculant.

Lets keep trying to reduce bags and bottles and not let 'regen ag' become a marketing buzzword for the continued use of a different kind of bag or bottle
 
I can see some products have benefits such as a range of nutrients or fulvic and humic acid, so a more nutrition farming approach.

Still very unsure about bugs in jugs and brewing. I especially can't see any benefit of doing this if you're following the five soil health principles either.

Molasses may help some people but i think the majority of farms would be looking to increase fungi rather than bacteria.

Like you said if you're going to place microbes onto your land i'd of thought you want the compost to come from your land to then use as a compost tea or innoculant.

Lets keep trying to reduce bags and bottles and not let 'regen ag' become a marketing buzzword for the continued use of a different kind of bag or bottle

There's loads of humic and fulvics in the ground anyway.

Don't get sucked in
 

The Ruminant

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Hertfordshire
Always worth reading a bit of Doug Edmeades on the matter. He is good at demanding some science to claims
You regularly push Doug Edmeades work, Will, which surprises me. You were probably the first person (back in the old BFF days) to introduce me to the idea that we are all stuck in our own paradigms. I would say that Edmeades is firmly stuck in a reductionist-science paradigm and is blinkered to anything else. Why are you such a fan?
 
You regularly push Doug Edmeades work, Will, which surprises me. You were probably the first person (back in the old BFF days) to introduce me to the idea that we are all stuck in our own paradigms. I would say that Edmeades is firmly stuck in a reductionist-science paradigm and is blinkered to anything else. Why are you such a fan?

Oh we are still are stuck in our paradigms for sure.

My view is that if you want to make a claim that apparently scientific or even quantifiable (or "true") then you need to be able to back it up with some information. And within the "regen ag" world there is a lot of stuff that is unquantifiable stuff that doesn't for me stand up to scrutiny scientifically. And I think it is a real weakness. I feel sometimes people make leaps of faith on certain issues because "if feels right" and I'm asking is this rational ie does it stand up to scrutiny, repeatedly?

I don't go for the reductionist-science thing. Science can do anything you ask of it if you asking the right questions - its not the limitations of the scientist is the limitations of our question/ theory.

In Doug Edmeades' case he always backs up his research. He is not pro or anti fertiliser in any given circumstance but he always makes sure he see's the evidence. For example he's very pro clover as a nitrogen fixer, he's not a fan of additional P if he feels the test says the soil has enough, he is not a fan of repackaged upmarketed fertilisers or soil balancing because he feels the research behind them doesn't back it up and I agree with him. He won't allow

I think the only area where I feel a difference with him is that because so much dairy is about short grass grazing that there is definitely more potential to look at the interaction between longer roots, rhizosphere and nutrient availability but this all dependant on how you farm
 

Daniel

Member
You often see a variation on the phrase 'im just giving this field some nutrition and biology' posted on agtwitter. Or 'all this field has had is one fung, one herb and some biology' .... that kind of thing.

Apart from being grammatically offensive, what does it mean? When I was doing A-level biology, if Dr Frith had walked into the classroom, asked me what I was up to and I'd replied 'i'm just doing some biology' she'd have put me in detention.

I assume it means molasses, or a compost tea, or some kind of unlicensed, unregulated brew their agronomist sold them?

It seems the word 'biology' is just being used because it sounds sciency and cutting edge.
 

JD-Kid

Member
Oh we are still are stuck in our paradigms for sure.

My view is that if you want to make a claim that apparently scientific or even quantifiable (or "true") then you need to be able to back it up with some information. And within the "regen ag" world there is a lot of stuff that is unquantifiable stuff that doesn't for me stand up to scrutiny scientifically. And I think it is a real weakness. I feel sometimes people make leaps of faith on certain issues because "if feels right" and I'm asking is this rational ie does it stand up to scrutiny, repeatedly?

I don't go for the reductionist-science thing. Science can do anything you ask of it if you asking the right questions - its not the limitations of the scientist is the limitations of our question/ theory.

In Doug Edmeades' case he always backs up his research. He is not pro or anti fertiliser in any given circumstance but he always makes sure he see's the evidence. For example he's very pro clover as a nitrogen fixer, he's not a fan of additional P if he feels the test says the soil has enough, he is not a fan of repackaged upmarketed fertilisers or soil balancing because he feels the research behind them doesn't back it up and I agree with him. He won't allow

I think the only area where I feel a difference with him is that because so much dairy is about short grass grazing that there is definitely more potential to look at the interaction between longer roots, rhizosphere and nutrient availability but this all dependant on how you farm
hes keen on pushing K
it was intresting a while ago he tested coated urea to see the long term effects so in the trial they had to keep testing the standard urea plots were in other N trials only went for say 6 weeks that he found was after the growth stage the paddock with urea on it dropped below the control paddock. and over the time frame did not grow any more than the control
it did. grow more while the n had efect so there is a hangover efect
the coated N might do the same if the trial was for longer
he's good but like any testing. it comes down to what the trial was set out to prove and if the trial run longer to see if there is any down side to the added growth
like using gib acid longer growth but less tillers. so n needs to be added to get the best efect
 
hes keen on pushing K
it was intresting a while ago he tested coated urea to see the long term effects so in the trial they had to keep testing the standard urea plots were in other N trials only went for say 6 weeks that he found was after the growth stage the paddock with urea on it dropped below the control paddock. and over the time frame did not grow any more than the control
it did. grow more while the n had efect so there is a hangover efect
the coated N might do the same if the trial was for longer
he's good but like any testing. it comes down to what the trial was set out to prove and if the trial run longer to see if there is any down side to the added growth
like using gib acid longer growth but less tillers. so n needs to be added to get the best efect

He probably pushes K because it drives clover growth. But to be honest I don't know the soils etc. I presume the decision is made according to soil test and what type of farming it is.

Not sure I understand the trial you quoted
 

Cutlerstom

Member
Arable Farmer
Azotic technologies had a piece on Farming Today on Monday about their bacterial spray that half’s the need for N to achieve the same yield. Currently being used in US. An underwhelming announcement for a a major breakthrough?? (Wheat, corn etc fixing N from the air).
seems to work in US in Maize as a seed treatment, or placed in furrow. But not sure how well they are getting on here when adding it to SPD on wheat or barley for example. It ought to be nobel prize stuff for Prof Ted Cocking, but like you say, why isn't it being made more of?
 

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