[Paul_Sengupta]

Mmm, maize. We need more corn-on-the-cob BBQs at airfields. With butter and salt.

I'm hungry now, going to find some lunch...

(might make a trip to the shop to get some COTC afterwards, though I've got a couple of tins of sweetcorn here)

[leiafee]

Mmm, maize. We need more corn-on-the-cob BBQs at airfields. With butter and salt.

Plus if it's grown either side of the strip as it sometimes is with us you can make Xwing noises and pretending you're attacking the Death Star trench as you fly down inbetween it to land....

[Pete L]

Shirely, if you used ploughorses you could apply the digestate on the same pass. Perhaps a little less evenly.

[Sooty25]

Mmm, maize. We need more corn-on-the-cob BBQs at airfields. With butter and salt.

you don't want to be trying biofuel maize, it ain't like Green Giant!

[TheFarmer]

Sorry for the delay, but it’s been a busy few weeks planting spring barley.

The wheat is developing well, albeit slowly. The cold air and soil temperatures have held it back compared to a normal Spring, but it responded well to the Nitrogen fertiliser it received back at the end of Feb.

You can see how well it used it by my tiny little missed bits!



The crop had another dose of nitrogen last week, and although many farmers split the nitrogen into three applications, I prefer to do four, to feed it little and often.

It keeps it well fed, and always with nitrogen near its roots. It starts to go yellowish when a dose runs out, and the aim is to split the applications evenly and time it in with the weather too.




You can see from an individual plant that there is new growth, and the idea is to protect that from disease using fungicides. The programme of application starts soon, and we use three in total, with the main aim being controlling Septoria, a fungal disease that forms on the leaf in warm wet weather and reduces the chance for the plant to photosynthesise.



The manky looking leaf is an old one that saw it though the winter, and is now being left behind for new growth.

Temperatures are forecast to be 20 degrees next week, so the crop will really start growing fast soon and we need to also ensure we get the timing of the straw shortener right too, to make sure it doesn’t get too tall and fall over later in the season.

[Bill McCarthy]

How much does the continuous treatment eat into profit ?

[TheFarmer]

Without the nitrogen fertiliser the yield would be as much as halved, and without crop protection it could be 30% of budgeted yield.

[Bill McCarthy]

We enter the field three times - plough, then drill along with 100kg 16:16:16 /acre, then combine. For oats, that is.

[Pete L]

Without the nitrogen fertiliser the yield would be as much as halved, and without crop protection it could be 30% of budgeted yield.

Where does the nitrogen come from? People or pigeons?

[Bill McCarthy]

It’s the same stuff that destroyed Beruit !

[PeteSpencer]

Without the nitrogen fertiliser the yield would be as much as halved, and without crop protection it could be 30% of budgeted yield.

Where does the nitrogen come from? People or pigeons?

Reminds me of a story a farmer friend of mine used to tell .
In the 80s he was showing a coach load of Japanese visiting farmers around his large farm where he had implemented some revolutionary new farming techniques ( don’t ask me).
As they drove around his huge farm estate he noticed the Japanese getting more and more animated/agitated . He asked what was wrong ( the following was then recounted in mock Japanese accent):

‘Aaaah, Misser M.....s (his name)....., Misser M...s, ..........., Where dah yit? Dere no yit?......’

-Apparently Japanese fields were always surrounded by piles of human yit for spreading- and they couldn’t odds how he managed without .

[Bill McCarthy]

On a visit to Bangkok we saw fields of green watermelon fertilised by “human yit” ! That’s why I never eat ‘em.

[TheFarmer]

Without the nitrogen fertiliser the yield would be as much as halved, and without crop protection it could be 30% of budgeted yield.

Where does the nitrogen come from? People or pigeons?

It’s either ‘manufactured’ in the form of prilled (little balls) to apply through a spreader, or liquid solution to apply through a sprayer. If you farm near a livestock community (I don’t) then (FYM) farmyard manures or slurry is also used, but not so much in the rapid growth phase in the Spring when an accurate quantity and application rate is needed on cereal crops.

[Pete L]

I thought I'd start with the opportunity for poo jokes, but what I was interested in was the forum farmers' opinion about long term sustainability - artificial fertilizers, crop rotation, etc.

Anecdotally they seemed to be planting beans round here until a few years ago but now it seems to be the same feed crop every year. Mostly clay bordering on watermeadow but with bits of the Chilterns mixed in - historically grazing livestock before their last journey to London. An awful lot of Welsh Lanes which I'm guessing are the old drove roads.

[Bill McCarthy]

Supermarkets steer clear of anything produced on farms where sewerage plant “cake” has been spread. I have been asked to take some, but absolutely not while I’m alive.