Fewer cultivations can be good for soil structure and health – but ploughing still has its place and can bring dividends, suggests the latest research. Nitrogen Use Efficiency (NUE) and greenhouse gas emissions both depend on crop productivity. And despite the ups and downs of grain markets and input... Read more

Cultural controls are helping to rid fields of herbicide resistant ryegrass on a Nottinghamshire farm. It comes after father and son team Peter and Rob Barlow took on 160ha of land infested with the weed. Soil types vary from gravel through to heavy loam across the farm which encompasses... Read more

A ground-breaking partnership has seen a group of farmers team up with pet food company Nestlé Purina to undertake environmental work in Suffolk. Known as the High Suffolk Farm Cluster, the farmers are providing sites for bird boxes made by retired carpenter and naturalist Jim Peart and funded by... Read more

Growers are reminded to avoid short gaps between spraying off and drilling, which can leave a green bridge for aphids to survive and spread barley yellow dwarf virus into new crops. Cereal volunteers and some weed species can host grain aphids and bird cherry-oat aphids – both of which... Read more

Growers unable to drill oilseed rape until last month due to the wet summer can rest assured that sowing the crop in September is not necessarily a bad thing. Later drilled oilseed rape can still produce a profitable crop – if it is a phoma-resistant hybrid variety variety with... Read more

A change in the law means farmers must now provide photo identification before they purchase ammonium nitrate fertiliser this autumn. The law change  came into effect on 1 October.  It affects sales of AN fertilisers with a nitrogen content of 16% or more and represents a widening of the Control... Read more