Arable farmer wins laptop

UK - March 25, 2009

Mr Richard Hadingham was the recent lucky winner of a Dow AgroSciences laptop after his name was pulled from the hat of growers who answered all the questions correctly in a quiz on herbicide Boxer.

Mr Hadingham runs a family based farming operation near Halesworth in Suffolk, where soil types are predominantly medium to heavy clay. The majority of the area is cropped with winter crops, including oilseed rape, first wheat and a small area of second and third wheats. A small proportion of the land is spring cropped with either vining peas or sugar beet. The main weeds encountered are blackgrass, cleavers, volunteer oilseed rape, groundsel, cleavers and speedwells.

Ben Myhill, from Agrivice Ltd, Independent Crop Consultants, who carries out the agronomy for Mr Hadingham says: ‘With regard to blackgrass, we try and use as many different modes of action to avoid resistant build-up, including pre-emergence treatments where possible. I’m very fortunate that Mr Hadingham is keen for the job to be done right, so if a job needs doing today, it’s done today – very important in a patchy season like this last autumn.”

Winter oilseed rape is currently established using min-til techniques to preserve moisture and ease the workload at a busy time of year. Provided the seed is covered this receives a Metazachlor + Clomazone (+ Trifluralin in previous years) to combat broadleaved weeds and sensitise the blackgrass. Once emerged an application of  Propaquizafop or Fluazifop-p-butyl is applied to take out any competing wheat volunteers. Once all of the blackgrass has emerged a decision is made as to the resistance status of the weed and whether it is felt a contact graminicide will control it or if not Kerb + contact graminicide is used. “We have found this to be the most reliable residual. Any remaining broadleaved weeds are tidied up with an application of Galera, which we have found works extremely well on cleavers and sow thistles,” adds Ben.

A similar view is taken with winter wheat, where a pre/peri emergence application of pendamethalin is applied, or if blackgrass is thought to be more resistant then a pendamethalin + flufenacet based product is used. This is followed by a sulfonylurea herbicide which may be applied in the autumn if the blackgrass is all up, if not in the spring. Boxer is used in a tank mix with this to control broadleaved weeds especially early in the season when temperatures are cool.

Mr Hadingham adds: ‘”With Ben’s support, we weigh up the pros and cons of what is the right product or combination of products to use on our target weeds at a particular time. We will consider generics if we think they are appropriate, however, when it comes to tank mixing there are some generic products that can react in an unexpected way, so investment in a known brand is often worth the extra expense as then we known it is guaranteed to do what it says on the tin.”

Ben adds: ‘Mr Hadingham is fortunate, that although blackgrass is his biggest problem, there doesn’t appear to be any severe resistance issues at present, however this can soon change! This gives us more flexibility with the products we can use. Also, his rotational system with the addition of peas and sugar beet gives us further options of products and timings. The use of different cultivation practices further aids methods of control, with stale seedbeds being created wherever possible, and ploughing carried out on a rotational system, predominantly for consecutive straws or peas and beet.”

More recently, Mr Hadingham’s son Ed has decided to look into variable rate fertiliser applications. “With the rising cost of inputs, we thought it was worth a look – the farm will be shortly mapped using Agrivice’s guidance and satelite mapping equiment to gauge levels of P & K, and then variable spread accordingly. Further to this, Ed is going to trial variable rate nitrogen applications based on leaf area indices to try and save and optimise nitrogen usage.”

Ed already has the new laptop lined up for the business and is going to use it for analysing/storing crop yield maps along with his variable rate spreading maps.