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the work they had done at the very beginning of the programme . In October 2014 the farmers explored the elements of precision farming , the opportunities and benefits , the barriers and problems and where investment for return should be prioritised . Groups of farmers reminded each other that the cheapest , and most cost-effective tools of precision farming were the spade and tape measure .
At this first meeting , Julian agreed to evaluate specific examples of precision farming
www . farmingmonthly . co . uk throughout the three years of the project .
He therefore reported back on one of the summer ’ s variable rate N trials , where on the last pass he attempted to even up the grain N content on one of his malting barley fields .
“ The area we thought would yield the lowest , actually yielded highest by a tonne , and vice versa . This meant that our variable rate N applications were back-to-front and instead of evening up the grain N contents in the areas of different yield we made the situation worse : what turned out to be the highest yielding areas having sub optimal applied N and low grain N , while the areas of high biomass and expected highest yield received too much N and had high grain N levels due to the lower yield .
“ As it turned out the whole crop was rejected for malting due to screening levels so the uneven grain N was not an issue this season .”
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