farming without an agronomist ?

ajd132

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Suffolk
That is the great shame IMO - some of these guys are very smart, very switched on agronomists and advisors, the best in fact. But the money just gets in the way sadly................ I guess its just the world we live in
I agree, loads of excellent and smart people, who do a better job running a farm than a lot of farmers are hamstrung by their paymasters who have to do much control over the industry.
wouldn’t it be great to get our businesses to a size where we could afford a full time agronomist/trials/technical expert who could dedicate 100% of their time to all the things we want to know about (that the supply industry doesn’t).
 

Brisel

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Midlands
How many people will be doing a T0 of CTL just to use up the product they have in the shed??

I've got Timpani (CTL + teb) to use up as well as 2 l/ha to use later on. No regrets bearing in mind it was 9 months ago I ordered it but I have to use it all by 20th May. Still relatively cheap insurance & I can add managanese & a sniff of the cheapest CCC I can buy to help retain tillers while I'm going through. I have a 100% chance of getting septoria down here - it's just a question of keeping the leaves clean from April to June.
 

AndrewM

Member
BASIS
Location
Devon

suggest people check where they are in terms of disease risk on the maps. its easy criticize other peoples fungicide spend if your farm happens to be in one of the low risk areas.

on the flip side, most fungicide trials will have been conducted in one of the hotspots on a dirty variety in order to get a meaningful result. i suspect there are farms in low risk areas that could happily cut some fungicide spend.
 

Hindsight

Member
Location
Lincolnshire
I agree, loads of excellent and smart people, who do a better job running a farm than a lot of farmers are hamstrung by their paymasters who have to do much control over the industry.
wouldn’t it be great to get our businesses to a size where we could afford a full time agronomist/trials/technical expert who could dedicate 100% of their time to all the things we want to know about (that the supply industry doesn’t).

Is that not what Velcourt did / do and Beeswax are doing - if I understand they are involved with the reinvention of the late Chris Grren's CMI? What are your thoughts on those companies agronomy? I should say here I do not want to denigrate or be antagonistic to those two farming businesses, so apologies in advance for any upset.
 

ajd132

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Suffolk
Is that not what Velcourt did / do and Beeswax are doing - if I understand they are involved with the reinvention of the late Chris Grren's CMI? What are your thoughts on those companies agronomy?
We are members of CMI and now the new business green crop which beeswax have taken on as a going concern. I think it’s a good step and will continue to use their services.
The velcourt model is abit to blueprinty for my liking and doesn’t really fit in with the way my own agronomy is going which is more of an agro-ecological type method.
 

ajd132

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Suffolk
Everyone is different, has different interests/skills/needs, - and capacity for self-deception - I would hesitate to be prescriptive, but it is worth remembering that another point of view has many benefits, even if you don't like what they say.
I agree, that’s why many of us use groups like CMI and niab to get the different viewpoints. Social media and forums very good also. We use lots of different people for different advice and will usually pay an hourly rate.
One agronomist is one view point and opinion, I would say I get far many more points of view than if I left it all to a single area paid agronomist.
 

SFI - What % were you taking out of production?

  • 0 %

    Votes: 78 43.1%
  • Up to 25%

    Votes: 63 34.8%
  • 25-50%

    Votes: 30 16.6%
  • 50-75%

    Votes: 3 1.7%
  • 75-100%

    Votes: 3 1.7%
  • 100% I’ve had enough of farming!

    Votes: 4 2.2%

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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