My Bridgeway Biostimulant trial

fudge

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Lincolnshire.
Would the different rotation make the whole farm margin any greater? I'll bet you'd have less grass weeds unless you swap 2nd wheat for winter barley or winter oats. I'll refrain from any remarks about changing the tillage regime :)
No mate it would lower profit that’s why l haven’t done it.
 

snarling bee

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Bedfordshire
Not missing the point at all - soil is simply dirt without biology and biology need OM to feed it. It’s not hard to understand what happens to a cow if you don’t feed it, livestock in soil is no different !

Of course OM needs N to break it down but also eaten by a multitude of soil biology that eats and process it for you. N that goes into breakdown OM isn’t lost, it’s simply banked for later

You really should come have a look around our place - it would be really interesting as you were very familiar with a lot of our land and soil 10 years ago ....... I expect you wouldn’t recognise it now. Focusing on improving SOM and soil biology has lifted yields at least 10% over that period while using much lower inputs to get them

its not a bold statement because that's what's happened to my sold yields over the last 10 years. I'm not claiming (and never have claimed) that's all down to zerotill / conservation agriculture though as a number of factors all probably contribute to that result

The biggest single change I have made over the same period is our move to zerotill however. I'm not here to prove anything to anyone else but all involved with our farm can see the significant difference it has made and how our soils are changing significantly already


I'm not sure what you are claiming and what you are not.
 

Clive

Staff Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Lichfield
I'm not sure what you are claiming and what you are not.

I’m stating I’ve seen average yields improve by 10% over the last 10 years

I’m not claiming that’s down to zero-till but I am stating that the biggest change we have made over that 10 years is a very significant reduction in cultivation
 

Clive

Staff Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Lichfield
I could put my average yield up by 10% tomorrow but stopping growing second wheat.

Profit is my focus and massive reduction in fixed cost structure has improved that dramatically

Lower gross output as more spring crops but lower fixed cost structure, reduced variable cost spend and better yields more than makes up for that

Works for me, not saying it’s right for everyone however
 

snarling bee

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Bedfordshire
But that's not really how your first post reads is it?

I am leaving a field (with houses both sides) from any form of soil amendment just to see what the OM and yields do compared to where I am putting on compost/digested cake/FYM. At least in 10 years I can say that my newish policy has worked or not.
 

Clive

Staff Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Lichfield
But that's not really how your first post reads is it?

I am leaving a field (with houses both sides) from any form of soil amendment just to see what the OM and yields do compared to where I am putting on compost/digested cake/FYM. At least in 10 years I can say that my newish policy has worked or not.

Reads that way to me - I simply stated yields were 10% higher, I didn’t say why that might be just that things had clearly changed.

If i was to speculate about what the biggest reason for the difference was I would guess at increases SOM % which isn’t the result of any one change but a combination of various changes made

But I would only be guessing and basing my view on gut feel and observation - I’m not a research facility so have not run replicated controls over the same period !
 
They are but your rate of investment can bankrupt you before you get there

It’s not complex to understand what we need to do but it is complex to do make that change whilst still staying profitable and viable

If only I could afford to apply 25.000 t of compost and another 25,000t of FYM each year ........... 100k to spend on drainage would be nice as well and I could blow a couple of million on a 200 cow dairy unit with robots and people to run it ........ all of these things would improve my soils very quickly

Fact is change has to happen at an affordable and practical pace I’m afraid

I think we will have to agree to disagree that AD is not a dairy heard or the biology they bring

The clue is in the name “anaerobic”. There is nothing good for soil life about that

It’s a soil mining system and not anything I would have anywhere near my land thanks

@Clive Your farm was a dairy farm so I thought you’d know a bit? A cows rumen is anaerobic! Even I remember that from college.

The crops grown for both dairy and AD are similar so if you’d ideally have a dairy farm back then what’s the difference with AD? If anything AD is better because you can put other things in such as food waste should the option occur.

I’ve been around a few AD plants now and not seen one that’s badly run and they’ve transformed the farming business. They take up a lot less space than a herd of cows and once up a running 1 man can look after a 1MW plant which is like 300 cows. You get both liquid and dried fertilisers/soil conditioners out of them as well as the income from electricity, gas and heat sales. The icing is the tariffs of course but don’t register for them if your so against it. Whether you like it or not renewable energy is here to stay unless nuclear comes back and wipes it out. Selling electricity or gas is just another enterprise and gross margin within today’s farming business’s.

A relatively small 500 MW plant when we nearly signed on the dotted line had a 5 year payback and that’s without taking into account the fertiliser it gives you back. It would suit 500-800 acres of land depending on crop type and would take 0.5 a man to run it once it was up and running. I don’t have the figures to hand but iirc if operated well your looking at £250k per year extra income from it. Take into account the lost revenue on the land from normal combinable rotation and it was still miles ahead of any other crop. As Tom already pointed out bad AD is all you see in the press but for every bad operator there’s 20 good operators.

And if your so against anaerobic so both AD and dairy slurry isn’t for you then have a look at a TAD plant instead.
http://www.wrap.org.uk/collections-...sting/guidance/thermophilic-aerobic-digestion
 

fudge

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Lincolnshire.
Profit is my focus and massive reduction in fixed cost structure has improved that dramatically

Lower gross output as more spring crops but lower fixed cost structure, reduced variable cost spend and better yields more than makes up for that

Works for me, not saying it’s right for everyone however
That’s the rub isn’t it. If you are over mechanised reducing output to lower costs and increase profits makes sense. However reducing output really isn’t increasing yields by 10%. I’d say some of your comments are very selective about which “facts” you present.
 

fudge

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Lincolnshire.
But that's not really how your first post reads is it?

I am leaving a field (with houses both sides) from any form of soil amendment just to see what the OM and yields do compared to where I am putting on compost/digested cake/FYM. At least in 10 years I can say that my newish policy has worked or not.
Have you considered a small area of 5 or 10 year ley as a comparison to both? Making hay with a Quad track is not something I could recommend though.
 

fudge

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Lincolnshire.
I thought you'd say that :)

Are you happy with 2nd wheat for sustainable profitability at the moment?
For the moment. Planting 2nd wheat last autumn was an easy decision here. It was possible at that point to sell 2 ton/ac @£170/ton. Large strip till farms round here see a reduction in gross output as Clive has outlined. They do topdown directly behind the combine and subsoil “where necessary”. To make that spreadsheet add up one needs to spread the fix costs over a very wide area. Their operations do depend on the ability to use a total herbicide as far as I can see.
 

snarling bee

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Bedfordshire
Planning 2nd 3rd and continuous wheat is easy for me. Its the only crop that makes any money. But I have the soil to do it.
On the less evil clay, the 3 crop rule and on contract farms we do grow combinable cover crops of barley, beans and occasionally OSR.

Have you considered a small area of 5 or 10 year ley as a comparison to both? Making hay with a Quad track is not something I could recommend though.

We can't sell the hay or the grazing on what we have got, so even though it might be a good idea from a soil and weed management point of view I don't really want to go down that road.
 

Clive

Staff Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Lichfield
@Clive Your farm was a dairy farm so I thought you’d know a bit? A cows rumen is anaerobic! Even I remember that from college.

The crops grown for both dairy and AD are similar so if you’d ideally have a dairy farm back then what’s the difference with AD? If anything AD is better because you can put other things in such as food waste should the option occur.

I’ve been around a few AD plants now and not seen one that’s badly run and they’ve transformed the farming business. They take up a lot less space than a herd of cows and once up a running 1 man can look after a 1MW plant which is like 300 cows. You get both liquid and dried fertilisers/soil conditioners out of them as well as the income from electricity, gas and heat sales. The icing is the tariffs of course but don’t register for them if your so against it. Whether you like it or not renewable energy is here to stay unless nuclear comes back and wipes it out. Selling electricity or gas is just another enterprise and gross margin within today’s farming business’s.

A relatively small 500 MW plant when we nearly signed on the dotted line had a 5 year payback and that’s without taking into account the fertiliser it gives you back. It would suit 500-800 acres of land depending on crop type and would take 0.5 a man to run it once it was up and running. I don’t have the figures to hand but iirc if operated well your looking at £250k per year extra income from it. Take into account the lost revenue on the land from normal combinable rotation and it was still miles ahead of any other crop. As Tom already pointed out bad AD is all you see in the press but for every bad operator there’s 20 good operators.

And if your so against anaerobic so both AD and dairy slurry isn’t for you then have a look at a TAD plant instead.
http://www.wrap.org.uk/collections-...sting/guidance/thermophilic-aerobic-digestion

AD abstract a lot more energy from land than a cow does and much faster - is that sustainable ? Does the deplete Carbon faster than it can build ? if so its a long way from sustainable ............... its certainly not without subs and i'm not really into sub dependent lifestyle

We used digestate for a couple of years and I don't rate it at all, nothing like the available N that was claimed, a mess made during application, and a disaster for worms (if they are hurt I dread to think what the effect on smaller less visible biology is) I don't see it as the future, I see it as a sub dependent trend that wont last and certainly not something I would want 7 figures of my money in

The AD plant at Cannock was a mess for quite some time until they finally managed to get it right as was JJD according to J last time I spoke to him but he did say it was sorted now - its certainly not simple or switch on and forget

They've a place but IMO that place is much better if they run on a decent proportion of waste, land should be producing food IMO
 

Clive

Staff Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Lichfield
That’s the rub isn’t it. If you are over mechanised reducing output to lower costs and increase profits makes sense. However reducing output really isn’t increasing yields by 10%. I’d say some of your comments are very selective about which “facts” you present.

have a read of my article in thiissue 5 direct driler magazine for a better explanation http://www.directdriller.com/latest-issue/ page 46

Rotational gross margin falls under zerotill ............ because you have to grow more lower margin spring crops to keep it sustainable BUT gross margins of individual crops increases and you use less inputs and get higher yields in my experience so far

The lower gross output of the more spring crop heavy rotation is fine IF your foxed costs are low which they can be when you are doing less field work and spreading workload over a much longer working window of spring and autumn

Put simply if you can cut costs by say 50% but your gross output drops by say 20% your bottom line will still be 30% better off


Most farms are driven by gross output so HAVE to grow as much wheat and OSR as they can - they need cashflow and are driven by it over profit because they have rent, finance and labour bills that have become disproportionate to the business that they have to pay

I'm not being selective, i'm juts trying to explain the changes we have made to other when they ask, if it didn't work we wouldn't still be doing it or taking this approach would we ?
 

jonnyjon

Member
AD abstract a lot more energy from land than a cow does and much faster - is that sustainable ? Does the deplete Carbon faster than it can build ? if so its a long way from sustainable ............... its certainly not without subs and i'm not really into sub dependent lifestyle

We used digestate for a couple of years and I don't rate it at all, nothing like the available N that was claimed, a mess made during application, and a disaster for worms (if they are hurt I dread to think what the effect on smaller less visible biology is) I don't see it as the future, I see it as a sub dependent trend that wont last and certainly not something I would want 7 figures of my money in

The AD plant at Cannock was a mess for quite some time until they finally managed to get it right as was JJD according to J last time I spoke to him but he did say it was sorted now - its certainly not simple or switch on and forget

They've a place but IMO that place is much better if they run on a decent proportion of waste, land should be producing food IMO
Yes, ad waste can be nasty stuff. No ad plant or anything else for that matter can or will ever replace a ruminant grazing with regard to soil health
 

Hereward

Member
Location
Peterborough
@Clive not read the whole thread, but to surmise how these tramline farmer trials work.

1. There is usually enough in field variability between tramlines to be statistically significant.
2. Get a few farmers to do the 'trial', hope your magic potion is lucky and is on a 'good tramline'.
3. Hey presto Farmer 'CB' sees a 0.5t/ha yield increase from magic potion, its statistically significant, farmer CB backs this up with his anecdotal evidence.
4. Magic potion company disregards the other ten farmers who saw no yield increase or even a decrease (all due to in field variability as magic potion is in fact rubbish).
5. Magic potion company uses CB as their poster child, farmer CB buys IBC's of the stuff!

Seen it all before, this sort of thing has been tried for years, probably since the dawn of agriculture.

I sincerely hope I'm wrong.
 

SFI - What % were you taking out of production?

  • 0 %

    Votes: 79 42.5%
  • Up to 25%

    Votes: 65 34.9%
  • 25-50%

    Votes: 30 16.1%
  • 50-75%

    Votes: 3 1.6%
  • 75-100%

    Votes: 3 1.6%
  • 100% I’ve had enough of farming!

    Votes: 6 3.2%

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

  • 1,287
  • 1
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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