Agrii Journals Secondary Archives

this is a test article for test 2014

July 4, 2014 12:42 pm Comments Off

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another test article for north summer 2014

July 2, 2014 8:27 am Comments Off

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Fusce eget purus id velit vestibulum porttitor in nec nibh. Fusce nec lacus nibh. Pellentesque consectetur bibendum dapibus. Donec at consectetur elit. Nulla suscipit nunc orci, nec facilisis ipsum condimentum et. Quisque sit amet imperdiet nibh. Maecenas mollis augue vel mattis posuere. Vestibulum ante ipsum primis in faucibus orci luctus et ultrices posuere cubilia Curae; Proin tristique magna ut velit malesuada euismod. Cras ante urna, venenatis ac lorem sit amet, malesuada commodo magna. Proin non euismod lacus, ut ultrices felis. Pellentesque mattis nisi vitae neque fringilla tempor. Ut rhoncus lectus euismod lobortis blandit. Morbi ac diam tincidunt, elementum diam et, accumsan augue. Vestibulum tortor lorem, bibendum eu diam sit amet, consectetur suscipit neque. Donec mattis nunc vitae risus condimentum cursus vitae sollicitudin enim.

Nulla ac neque eleifend sapien sagittis blandit sed sed metus. Duis tempor vel dui ac suscipit. Nulla auctor facilisis sapien, id mattis elit fringilla nec. Fusce imperdiet magna in neque rhoncus, eget aliquet ipsum scelerisque. Sed posuere metus mauris, ultricies aliquam libero gravida vel. Pellentesque blandit nec quam ut rutrum. Praesent id massa sed lorem sollicitudin vestibulum sed at risus. Phasellus posuere nisi ac cursus gravida. Etiam sagittis adipiscing bibendum. Maecenas aliquam sed urna id gravida. Aliquam vulputate justo et mauris venenatis vulputate.

Grant Opportunity – Don’t miss out

March 27, 2014 3:24 pm Comments Off

The third round of the FFIS grant is available to apply for from 4 Feb – 4 April. This grant, among other things gives 40% aid towards GPS equipment on tractors used for fertiliser application and is therefore a sort after aid. There are many other items that are included other than GPS, other key areas of interest in the last few years have been reservoirs, animal handling, sheep ID, water harvesting tanks and roofing, manure heaps and slurry stores.

The main points have been summarised below:

Round 3 of the Farming and Forestry Improvement Scheme (FFIS) launches on the 4 February 2014.
The selection process for FFIS is competitive.
The round will close on Friday 4 April 2014
Unlike previous rounds the RDPE will start processing applications as soon as they arrive. Therefore applicants are strongly advised to apply as soon as they can.
The maximum grant per business for FFIS Round 3 is £35,000 and the minimum grant is £2,500.
Applicants who have received grant funding in previous FFIS rounds are eligible to apply and can apply for the full £35,000. However, in the event that the round is oversubscribed, priority will be given to applicants that have not previously been awarded a grant.
Only items listed in the Applicant Handbook are eligible for funding and grant rates vary between 15% and 50% depending on the item and applicant location.

There are 5 themes in FFIS:-

Nutrient management;
Energy efficiency;
Water management;
Animal health and welfare;
And Forestry

If you are interested in knowing more about this grant opportunity, please get in touch with Laura Wraith on 07760 776089 or laura.wraith@www.agrii.co.uk

Master Seeds app fine tunes seed rates

3:19 pm Comments Off

The new Seed Rate Calculator App from Agrii makes it easy and convenient to plan your seed requirements and calibrate your sowing equipment to establish the optimum plant populations for high performing crops.

Uniquely, the app enables growers and agronomists to compare the planned target population against the actual crop establishment. This knowledge provides the user with a sound evidence base for adjusting variable rate and whole-field seed rates as well as subsequent crop management protocols.

Ewan McFarlane, who led the app development project for Agrii, explained that “an accurate knowledge of how plant establishment varies over different soil types and seedbed conditions is essential if growers are to optimise their investment in variable seed rate and soil mapping technologies, this app helps our customers achieve this goal”.

The calculator web app is available to use on the Agrii website by visiting http:// www.agrii.co.uk/seed-rate-calculator/ with versions for all mainstream smartphone and tablet computers following later in the year.

For more information contact your Agrii agronomist.

New Precision Options from SoilQuest

3:15 pm Comments Off

SoilQuest is Agrii’s Precision Agronomy System, providing agronomists, farmers and growers with accurate information about their soils on which to base profitable decisions.

Currently working with a significant number of our customers across the North, SoilQuest uses Veris scanning and detailed analysis to produce soil maps and management zones within fields, which when integrated with variable rate equipment can apply inputs in a much more targeted and cost effective way.

Agrii’s SoilQuest service offers three options to gather data and provide advice, allowing us to match your specific requirements. The depth and detail of data gathered is completely unique, as is the flexibility of the service. In addition we offer an unrivalled level of support and advice through our expert interpretation of the data we collect.

For more information, please contact Fraser Rennie on 07545 927478 or Dave Cowe on 07831 254172.

Agrii North Agronomist scoops prestigious award

3:14 pm Comments Off

Mark Fletcher, an Agrii agronomist from North Yorkshire has been announced as the winner of this year’s Barrie Orme Shield awarded by the industry’s training and certification body BASIS. The shield is given each year to the best candidate for the BASIS Certificate in Crop Protection. Mark was presented with the award by Sir Jim Paice MP at a short ceremony at the Farmers Club in London.

Mark, who joined Agrii in 2012, currently works in and around Northallerton and Thirsk mainly on arable crops, but also offers advice on soft fruit, protected lettuce and brassicas. He has graduated from Queens University, Belfast with a B.Agr (Batchelor of Agriculture) a M.Sc and a Ph.D from the University of Reading and has also worked for Syngenta and Westland Horticulture. As well as the BASIS Certificate in Crop Protection, he passed his FACTS exam in March.

Nutrition trials deliver significant benefits

February 21, 2014 12:04 pm Comments Off

Dr Syed Shah – R&D Manager

This year field and weather conditions have been much better than last year and we have managed to drill all our trials at the AgriiFocus site near Swindon. Currently we are looking at the effect of sowing date, seed rate, fungicide, different types of nitrogen and phosphate fertiliser and trace elements on yield and quality of winter oilseed rape, winter wheat and winter barley. All the trials at the AgriiFocus site have established well and have received their pre and post emergence herbicide, insecticide and fungicide treatments (where applicable).

The 2013 harvest data has been analysed and will be presented in the forthcoming farmer meetings. The trials results have shown that there were significant differences amongst winter wheat varieties under the challenging conditions in autumn 2012 and the varieties Dickens, Crusoe, Gallant, Sky-fall and Solace had better establishment and plant survival than the other varieties investigated in the trial. This tends to suggest that we should be focusing on identifying the varieties which can perform well in a wide range of weather conditions. This is one of the reasons we have increased the number of varieties in our variety trials in which we are comparing 103 varieties of winter oilseed rape, 89 varieties of winter wheat and 59 varieties of winter barley in terms of crop growth, development, establishment, susceptibility to diseases, lodging risk, yield and quality.

Crop nutrition plays a crucial role in crop establishment and plant survival, particularly during adverse weather conditions. The main objective of the early nutrition is to enhance crop establishment by improving root growth. A bigger and deeper root system allows the plant to access available nutrients in the soil. It can also reduce lodging risk and makes water accessible during drought conditions.

In one of the trials at AgriiFocus, we investigated the effects of different treatments on crop establishment of winter oilseed rape. Data analysis showed that NutriPhite PGA and Quark had a very positive effect on crop establishment and green area index (GAI) which was 30% higher than the untreated plots, measured in terms of normalised difference vegetation index (NDVI). However, the positive effects of the treatment were not translated into yield. This may have been due to increased demand for other nutrients which were probably yield limiting factors. Currently we are investigating the effects of a range of trace elements on yield of winter oilseed rape treated with Take-Off seed treatment. As shown in the Fig 1, the plots treated with Take-Off had more plants/sq m and higher GAI, measured in terms of NDVI. Although the Take-Off has created a yield potential, the challenge is to treat this crop appropriately to achieve higher yields.

Trace elements also had a significantly positive effect on grain yield of winter wheat over the last two years (Fig 2 and 3). These yield benefits were partly attributed to increased green leaf retention (Fig 1). It has been well documented that trace elements such as copper, zinc and boron have a significant effect on the photosynthetic efficiency and translocation of assimilates towards the ear, which in turn improves ear fertility, grains per ear and average grain weight. The improved translocation of assimilates may have resulted in the higher yield in our trials. We have many more interesting results to share with you and I would like to invite you to come to one of the AgriiFocus events in which these results will be presented.

Fig 2 Effect of trace elements on grain yield of winter wheat varieties at AgriiFocus 2012

Fig 3 : Effect of trace elements on grain yield of winter wheat varieties at AgriiFocus 2013

Fig 4: Effect of trace element on green tissue retention

Greater Precision in Soil Understanding

11:58 am Comments Off

A more precise understanding of soils and their variation across every field is vital to make the most of the latest GPS-based farming technologies, believes precision agronomy specialist, John Lord.

“Modern precision technologies enable us to automatically adjust a wide range of inputs to the surprisingly wide variations in soils across our fields,” pointed out the technical manager responsible for Agrii’s innovative range of precision agronomy services. “But without accurately mapping and appreciating these variations we simply cannot tailor our inputs to make the most of them.

“We know from our long-standing SoilQuest experience that accurate soil maps produced from in-field scanning or satellite technology are far more valuable precision farming resources than those developed through either conventional whole field or grid-based soil sampling. Allied to precision sampling, they show us how the soil actually varies across the field rather than how either informed guesswork or computer predictions suggest it might.

Our studies over the past two seasons underline the importance of moving beyond traditional manual to more precise laser soil texture analysis, to such an extent that we’ve made laser topsoil analysis standard across our advanced precision agronomy mapping services.”

“Laser analysis allows us to characterise soil zones within a field accurately and consistently for their actual contents of sand, silt and clay particles for the greatest agronomic precision,”

“Its value is clearly illustrated in one 22 ha field we’ve mapped using both methods of soil texturing with samples taken following SoilQuest conductivity scanning. Manual texturing divides the field into two soil types – clay and clay loam. But laser analysis shows it should actually be divided into between five and nine separate zones for the best management (Figure 1).

“Zones within both the main soil type areas vary by a good 5% in their clay content. And the sand content varies by as much as 8% between zones that appear identical from manual texturing.

Figure 1: Soil Texturing following SoilQuest Scanning

“Relatively small differences in the particle size distribution of our soils can make big differences to their properties; and, in turn, to our best strategies for liming, nutrient application and sowing, not to mention cultivation, slug and weed control.

“Once input plans are entered into GPS-linked variable rate sowing and application equipment it takes no more time or effort to manage five zones in a field than two. So it makes sense to use with as much precision as we can.

“Knowing the precise sand, silt and clay contents of soils across our fields allows us to make the most of the precision input technologies. It also enables us to take the greatest advantage of new technologies for precision spraying and cultivation as they are developed.”

Add real-time information from the company’s network of weather stations, data from its soil moisture probes and alerts from its increasingly sophisticated pest and disease prediction models and he sees precision farming moving up a major gear in the opportunities it offers. Importantly, it must all be built on the solid foundation of the most precise understanding of our basic resource – soil.

“The world of soil understanding has moved on from ‘first generation’ field sampling in a simple W pattern and ‘second generation’ grid-based systems to the 3G of soil conductivity measurement. Laser texture analysis gives the extra precision to move us into the 4G world.”

Testing new apple and pear varieties

11:04 am Comments Off

Colin Bird – Fruit Technical Advisor

New varieties in the UK fruit industry are slow to come through. Of the approximately 2000 grown varieties, perhaps only 10 are of commercial significance to the main commercial growers, with Gala, Cox and Bramley holding up the majority share of the apple varieties with Conference dominating the pear market. Apart from Gala, all these varieties are over 100 years old – Gala is a mere youngster at nearly 80 years old.

Newer varieties are adopted if they meet consumer acceptance. They have to be able to store and progress through the modern marketing regimes. Anything with a short shelf life or limited availability is unlikely to meet with the multiple retailer’s requirements.

Recently ‘heritage’ or local varieties were resurrected to supplement the staple varieties. Most have, again, fallen by the wayside and are used by retailers as a stop gap measure if there is a short fall in the mainstream variety availability. A successful new variety, will almost certainly need to have global supply, aesthetic attractiveness, cross consumer flavour appeal and regular cropping potential. New club varieties offer a point of difference between retailers and marketing organisations and can provide growers with a commercial advantage over a standard offer.

At the Agrii IFarm plot at East Malling we have begun to plant up an orchard with new varieties on offer from European nurserymen alongside standard varieties. This will allow us to compare the cropping ability, flavour and other traits of some new varieties to help identify the commercial potential of the new offerings. It is unlikely that previously tried varieties are going to be successful in the future.

Currently we have five varieties of pear planted and 37 apple varieties or clones of varieties ( 5 of Gala, 2 of Braeburn and 2 of Cox ). We aim to plant more as they become available.

Also we have planted 7 modern cider varieties as cider production is expanding quicker than any other tree fruit area in the UK.

Having a multitude of varieties on one site will allow us to see the variance in maturity, distinctions between clones and also flavour testing fresh from the tree. Cropping potential will be evaluated on modern planting systems which growers will recognise and relate to, for their own farm inclusion. A lot is made of advice from the continent on tree management and with our own in-house expertise we hope to tease out the quirks and requirements of the varieties planted, not least the impact a martitime climate may impose as only the British can fully understand our weather! as well as moisture, light is such an important factor in tree management and we can now evaluate the new varieties from around the world, grown in our climate, on modern systems before our growers have to commit serious finance to new orchards and find out in year 5 that full crop cannot be achieved due to biennialism or find that light levels require a higher leaf to fruit ratio etc. The more diverse we are, the more knowledge can be accumulated for the benefit of the industry.