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Know How / Ploughing and cultivation

Advice on choosing the best cultivation system for your soil for soil health, cost control and crop establishment. See the pros and cons of the various tillage systems, including no-till, min-till or ploughing and help on how to prepare for switching systems without losing yield.

Advice and tips

SOILS

5 steps to introducing a no-till approach on arable farms

Farmer-led organisation Base-UK will be recommending a five-stage approach to adopting regenerative farming at Cereals, for growers looking to start their no-till journey. The five steps are: 1. Have a…

PLOUGHING AND CULTIVATION

5 cultivation and establishment methods compared

Establishment systems cover varying degrees of soil movement, from relatively little disturbance associated with direct-drilling and min-till through to deep cultivations and complete inversion with the likes of ploughing. Each…

BLACKGRASS

10 learnings from more than 21 years of blackgrass trials

More than two decades of work at Agrii’s Stow Longa site have shown how blackgrass can be successfully managed with plots getting as low as zero ears/sq m on a…

SOILS

How deep cultivations can repair heavy land after a wet winter

Heavy land arable farmers could benefit from subsoiling or mole ploughing after harvest in order to get soils back into shape, ready for autumn cropping, after a wet and damaging…

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Case studies

REGENERATIVE AGRICULTURE

How a large-scale regen system is working at Dyson Farming

Implementing regenerative agriculture principles across 14,000ha is a central component of Dyson Farming’s long-term circular farming model, as it produces high-quality food with minimal environmental impact. The plan has been…

CROP MANAGEMENT

How Wold Top Brewery barley grower lowered carbon footprint

The Yorkshire farming family behind the successful Wold Top Brewery and Yorkshire’s first single-malt whisky distillery is using the latest precision mapping technology in its drive towards a low-carbon, sustainable…

SOILS

How Danish grower cut pesticide use and improved soil health

Ninth-generation farmer Niels Hansen aims to produce as much output from as little input as possible. Thanks to the adoption of a conservation agriculture system, he is now successfully achieving…

POTATOES

Are no-till potatoes a pipe-dream?

Initial trials by Dyson Farming and Groundswell Agronomy are highlighting how difficult potato production with zero-tillage is likely to be commercially. But managing potato crops with reduced tillage, not zero tillage, while…

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Insights

DRILLING

Direct-drilling: Main findings from major five-year trial

Farming on heavy land in Leicestershire, Joe Stanley was skeptical that reducing cultivations by adopting a direct-drilling system would increase farm profitability and improve the environment. But after seeing the…

PLOUGHING AND CULTIVATION

How a new soil scoring tool picks the best cultivation option

A new crop establishment tool which assesses a range of soil management factors is set to help farmers identify whether a change in cultivation may benefit their soils. There is…

BLACKGRASS

Why farmers should tailor blackgrass strategies to dormancy

Trials being carried out at a blackgrass research site in Cambridgeshire show that farmers can gain extra control of blackgrass with their integrated approach by taking seed dormancy results into…

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News

AGRICULTURAL TRANSITION

SFI trials show ditching plough improves bird numbers

Fields established using conservation agriculture systems have higher bird numbers than those cultivated using a more conventional plough-based approach, according to research. Researchers believe this is due to improved soil…

CROP WATCH

Crop Watch: Stale seed-beds need more time for weed kill

As we head further into October, pressure is rising on farmers to start drilling their wheat in bad blackgrass fields, especially if the neighbours have already made a start. However,…

ARABLE

Spud Watch: Avoid planting wet areas of fields

Planting finally got under way in Yorkshire and the Borders once it stopped raining and the sun came out for a day or two. Conditions are variable, to say the…

SUGAR BEET

Video: Sugar beet drilling starts as growers play catch-up

Sugar beet drilling is racing ahead between the rain showers on light land with one Suffolk Brecklands estate looking to catch up from its latest start in more than a…

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Video

SUGAR BEET

Video: Sugar beet drilling starts as growers play catch-up

Sugar beet drilling is racing ahead between the rain showers on light land with one Suffolk Brecklands estate looking to catch up from its latest start in more than a…

COVER CROPS

Video: No-till wins over grower to direct-drilling

New to no-till grower Richard Boldan is driving forward his plans to convert to a reduced cultivation system for a more sustainable future, with ambitions to grow more spring crops and establish…

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