| On Topic
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.”
For more information, visit cereals. ahdb. org. uk / monitorfarms
March 2017 | Farming Monthly | 11