Learning from Project Lamport
A visit to Agrovista’s Project Lamport, recommended by the farm’s agronomist, Chris Martin, along with other events such as Groundswell, persuaded Mr Tuer to try a cover crop/spring crop sequence.
“Chris is a fantastic sounding board and I very much rely on his expertise. I had also read the press and seen what other people were doing. I was convinced we had to try to move towards this sort of system.”
Agrovista’s work at Project Lamport has proved that the cover crop/spring sequence can work year in, year out even on very heavy land, says Mr Martin, who is also Agrovista’s head of soil health.
“We are trying to build resilience into the soil. Cover crops act as soil health improvers, returning organic matter to the soil, conditioning the soil with their roots and boosting soil biology.
“Overwintered cover crops also draw out moisture through transpiration and improve drainage through rooting. This makes establishing profitable spring crops viable even on high-mag soils that Steve farms.”
Healthier soils also help tip the balance in favour of the crop and away from blackgrass, which thrives in wet, poorly drained land. Using the right cover crop can help further.
Black oats grow slowly for a few weeks before entering their rapid growth phase, allowing blackgrass to germinate and establish. The young blackgrass plants are then sprayed off with the rest of the cover before the spring crop is direct drilled to minimise soil disturbance and the risk of fresh blackgrass chit.
“Using these techniques, we reduced blackgrass plant numbers from 2000/sq m to single figures at Project Lamport over a couple of seasons,” says Mr Martin.
Mr Tuer started cover cropping last summer, using black oats, phacelia and vetch ahead of spring barley and spring oats, and dropping the vetch where he intended to plant spring beans. A fifth of the cropped area, about 80ha, is now in this system, increasing this summer to around 140ha.
The spring crops were drilled with a demo Dale direct drill, some into cover which had been sprayed off with glyphosate about a month beforehand, and some into a standing cover which was sprayed post drilling.
“Overall it has worked very well; we have some fantastic-looking crops following cover crops, better than others following overwintered fallow that was forced upon us by last autumn’s atrocious weather.
“Establishment looks better where the cover had been destroyed. Crops sown into green cover got away well but have suffered since, so I plan next year to destroy cover crop in advance of sowing.”
Blackgrass control is better in all spring-sown crops than those sown last autumn, he notes. “I now have a Dale drill on order. We are using low-disturbance tines to start with and will sow at a much lower target speed of 6-7kph to minimise the chances of chitting blackgrass seed.
“I don’t think the soils are good enough yet for discs – I think they would smear too much in damp conditions. The tines will create a little bit of tilth and some nitrogen mineralisation to help plants establish.
“We are now focused on rebuilding fertility – we need to try to get our soils back to where they were under a mixed farming system.”
A nine-year rotation is planned. About 40% will remain as winter wheat, the farm’s most profitable crop. Winter barley and some winter oilseed rape will also feature, while a third of the area will consist of spring crops, including barley, beans and oats. All spring crops will be preceded by a cover crop, and the rotation will also feature at least one double spring break.
Mr Tuer is also introducing a partial CTF system based on the 8m drill. He believes this, cover crop roots and incorporating more straw will negate the need for annual soil-loosening cultivations.
“I hope our new approach will can bring our soils back to where they were, as well as keeping on top of blackgrass and delivering viable spring crops. I hope we can do this without re-introducing grass, but I’ve not ruled it out. I’ll sell my min-till kit, but I’m retaining the option of rotational ploughing for a year or two yet.”
Practical improvements
In addition to implementing the cover crop plan, the farm has been making use of Agrovista’s Soil Health service.
“The aim of the service is to provide growers with a summary of various key soil parameters to help highlight key practical steps to help improve their soil health,” says Chis Martin.
The service uses electrical conductivity scanning to provide an accurate information on soil texture variation and topography across fields, providing an accurate base layer of information to make more informed decisions.
Adding farmer and agronomist knowledge helps provide a more accurate picture. All this can be used to draw up variable rate seed zones and can help target other inputs including slurry, FYM and biosolids.
As an option, satellite-derived biomass images and yield maps can be overlaid to indicate the effect of soil type on establishment and crop output. Data is gathered from several years to identify trends, which can be compared to soil type to establish where to look for limiting factors within a field.
Grower and agronomist then decide what action to take, says Mr Martin. “Steve and I have yet to have those discussions due to the Covid-19 lockdown, but the reports will help us identify and implement the chemical, physical and biological solutions necessary to manage soils for the benefit of long-term farm profitability and soil stability.”