£3.99 In this issue... Cereals Event returns page 62 Climate positive page 80 Full details and innovations to build back better Excited for opportunities on the carbon journey Crop Doctor page 8 Rethink on blight page 89 Opinion 4 Talking Tilth - A word from the editor. Volume 23 Number 7 6 Smith’s Soapbox - Views and opinions from an Essex peasant….. June 2021 103 Last Word - A view from the field from CPM’s technical editor. Tech Respect returns next issue. Technical 8 Crop Doctor - Septoria low at T2 As flag leaves emerge, Crop Doctor travels from west to east to assess disease. 14 Diagnostics - Instant intelligence Most farms are generating big data but how to interpret it isn’t always clear. 20 Inside traits - Step-on in wheat choice Four new Group 3 varieties may have added a new dimension. 24 Better buying, better selling - Little steps to a potential big profit Doing the little things could make oilseed rape a big earner. 30 Forward-thinking farmers - A crop you can rely on One Suffolk arable business has an OSR system with dependable genetics. 36 Insiders View - A new matrix… A new Clearfield candidate looks like it could change the game for growers. Editor Tom Allen-Stevens 40 Fit for the Future - Traits of success Technical editor KWS’ latest BYDV-tolerant variety looks set to play an important role. Lucy de la Pasture 44 Rotational Resilience - A conventional approach Machinery editor New barleys look to be snapping at the heels of their hybrid counterparts. Charlotte Cunningham Writers 48 Insiders View - Yields to rival the rest A new offering from Senova represents a step-on in barley. Tom Allen-Stevens Charlotte Cunningham Mike Abram Lucy de la Pasture 52 Grow the future - Waste an opportunity? A ground-breaking project may transform how you feed your crops. Rob Jones 56 Real Results Pioneers - Refining a methodical approach Design and production Growers in Essex face some of the toughest blackgrass in the country. Brooks Design Advertisement co-ordinator 60 Seed treatment - Bridge the hunger gap Making sure young seedlings aren’t limited by access to nutrients. Peter Walker Publisher Angus McKirdy Special Business development manager Charlotte Alexander 62 CPM special insight - Events showcase To claim two crop protection BASIS points, send an email to 15 pages of highlights, preview and insights into the Cereals Event and [email protected], quoting reference CP/100659/2021/g. Groundswell. To claim two NRoSO CPD points, please send your name, NRoSO member number, date of birth and postcode to Innovation [email protected] *the claim ‘best read specialist arable journal’ is based 77 Carbon farming - Measure, monitor, manage on independent reader research conducted by New services helps growers glean more accurate baseline measurements. McCormack Media 2020 80 Climate Change Champions - Enthusiasm for the carbon journey Editorial & advertising sales Newhouse Farm has already accomplished significant progress. CPM Ltd, 1 Canonbury, Shrewsbury, Shropshire SY3 7AG Tel: (01743) 369707 E-mail: angus cpm-magazine.co.uk 83 Digital Direction - Find a field view that’s true @ Climate FieldView is one of the world’s largest digital platforms in farming. Reader registration hotline 01743 861122 Advertising copy Roots Brooks Design, 24 Claremont Hill, Shrewsbury, Shropshire SY1 1RD Tel: (01743) 244403 E-mail: fred brooksdesign.co.uk 86 Sugar beet - Breeding solutions @ The sugar beet industry is looking to plant breeders to find genetic solutions. CPM Volume 23 No 7. Editorial, advertising and sales offices are at CPM Ltd, 1 Canonbury, Shrewsbury, SY1 9NX England. 89 Late blight - Time for new tactics? Tel: (01743) 369707. CPM is published eleven times a year by Limited availability of products means programmes are set to change. CPM Ltd and is available free of charge to qualifying farmers and farm managers in the United Kingdom. 96 Theory to Field - One step-up In no way does CPM Ltd endorse, notarise or concur with any of the Varietal resistance to foliar late blight is a resource that few growers utilise. advice, recommendations or prescriptions reported in the magazine. If you are unsure about which recommendations to follow, please consult a professional agronomist. Always read the label. Use pesticides safely. 100 Tech Talk - Spotlight on desiccation CPM Ltd is not responsible for loss or damage to any unsolicited Many factors influence the success of potato desiccation. material, including photographs. crop production magazine june 2021 3 CPM (Print) ISSN 2753-9040 CPM (Online) ISSN 2753-9059 question the norm will find may have for elements of our scares such as BSE, these are it’s time well spent. industry and rural communities standards of which we’re And we’re not going to we cherish. proud, inherently British, evoke tell you what farmers There is one aspect of this, trust, and have been replicated ‘need’ to do to grow though, that binds together around the world. good crops –– the every right-minded consumer They’re our gift to the world, word ‘need’ is just and farmer, whether here, as relevant today to protect about banned in this Australia, or anywhere in the consumers and farmers from publication because we world: any trade deal that the threats of climate change don’t presume to know results in lower standards and global disease threats as Who are you your needs better than you. cannot be accepted. This is the they were when they were dear reader? But we do strive to present political football currently being forged. The simple opportunity you with some new ideas and kicked around, and it’s a mighty for the UK Government here is interesting practices that may important one –– as Michael to export them –– make a stand There are many places CPM prompt you to think differently. Gove has stated on record, it’s where it really matters and is believed to be read –– in We think a little out-of-the-box wrong to “simply offshore” lower tariffs only for food the tractor, the farm office, thinking comes in particularly responsibility for maintaining certified to the standards UK grain store, and even the handy during times of environmental and animal consumers expect. downstairs loo. uncertainty, and if ever there welfare standards. So whether you’ve read Today marks a new chapter in was an illustration of just how The fact is, though, every issue of CPM over the its 22-year history, however, as uncertain times are for arable world trade doesn’t respect past 22 years or whether this is the first copies of CPM appear farmers, it’s now, as the UK is production standards. You can’t your first, whether you have a on newsstands in a selection of poised to strike a trade deal tell through minimum residue farming business stretching WH Smith high street stores and with Australia. The free-trade limits if a forest has been over 1000s of hectares or newsagents across the UK and deal the Government is chopped down, ancient pasture whether you’re just curious Ireland. So if you’ve picked up reportedly considering would ploughed up or banned about farming, it’s our values this magazine out of a pique of take tariffs on agricultural pesticide used to produce that bind us and bring together curiosity, maybe wondering what goods down to zero. your plant-based protein. our common interests. That’s on earth the two farmers on the Most at risk from this are Phyto-sanitary measures won’t what we’ve sought to enliven front cover are looking at so understood to be beef farmers tell you if the animal that and enrich in the pages that intently, please read on as all will who would be unable to produced your steak was follow, so I hope you enjoy be revealed (although you might compete with the low costs of grass-fed by a farmer who them. need to pay the nice person at some Australian cattle systems. cares or churned out of a feed the till to avoid getting an But the deal is also regarded lot where suffering is rife. These unwelcoming and stern stare). as a blueprint for subsequent things matter in the 2020s and Just who reads CPM, and deals that would see tariffs expose why FTAs, done on the more importantly what keeps lowered on other goods in other same basis they were in you reading it, is something of agricultural sectors of other medieval times, are no longer an obsession for the small, but nations with which the UK is fit for purpose. dedicated team that puts this keen to trade. To trade on these terms magazine together. We don’t There will be plenty of CPM would also be a betrayal of the think CPM is read by every readers who support free trade entire UK food industry which arable farmer, but it is valued by and lowering tariffs. For them, has spent the past 30 years Tom Allen-Stevens has a those who are curious. Farmers the disruptive effect is exactly developing independently 170ha arable farm in Oxon looking to follow the path of what’s needed to stimulate verified food production and, for some, a place on the tried and tested probably change and accelerate standards that underpin what your left thigh as you read don’t have time to absorb the progress for the UK industry. the UK consumer has come to this page. 104 pages of this bumper issue. Conversely, many will have expect. Set up to address [email protected] But those inspired by insight, concerns for the unintended the very real concerns of @tomallenstevens hungry for innovation and who consequences raw competition consumers following food In 1940, as the Nazi blockade of campaign met no individual to change again.