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Strong Start to HGCA/SAC Winter Event Programme for Cereal Growers
A Packed Audience Listens hard at Carfraemill (opens in new window)
Nearly 200 farmers and cereal industry representatives have so far attended the series of winter workshops organised by SAC in conjunction with HGCA. Two meetings have taken place, one at Carfraemill in the Borders the other in Perth. The final event in the series takes place later this week at Inverurie outside Aberdeen and is usually the largest of the three.
For arable farmers trying to make their cropping plans for 2012 there is much to ponder over. With hardly a dry day during the prolonged harvest season getting the crop cut, dried, stored and marketed was no easy task. In some areas a later than expected harvest ruined plans to get a new crop sown before the winter, leaving, more work in the spring and possible congestion at harvest. Growers in the south of Scotland may have fared better than those further north but the choices about which type of grain to grow, which variety and how much, are equally difficult.
That is why SAC and the levy funded specialist body HGCA have organised the winter workshops where speakers present the latest findings of research into cereals and oilseeds, funded by HGCA themselves and Scottish Government. The Inverurie event begins at 10.00 on Thursday 19th January in the Thainstone House Hotel.
With disease a major challenge this year SAC Plant Pathologist Dr. Neil Havis has been giving growers a unique view of diseases like ramularia leaf-spot. Photographs taken during new research and using various microscopes show how the diseases enter and live inside the plants they attack, offering views never seen in public before. It helps give a better understanding of how to control the diseases and new understanding of why they are able to become resistant to control measures so quickly
In a popular and annual review, SAC cereals expert Dr Steve Hoad focuses on the choice of cereal varieties available, using the latest version of the HGCA and SAC’s Recommended Lists. Three new spring barleys of particular interest to farmers growing for the malting trade are Odyssey, Chronicle and Overture, all of which proved to be high yielders in growing trials.
“Winter wheat growers have also been interested in Horatio”, says Steve Hoad. ”It appears to be less prone to sprouting in the head, something that happened a lot in damp muggy weather of this summer and lowers the value of the crop”.
For HGCA’s Crop Nutrition Research Manager James Holmes the focus has been on crop nutrition and getting the best out of inputs. The high cost of artificial fertilisers and new environmental concerns make it doubly important to avoid waste or polluting run off. The same applies to cattle and slurry which make a significant contribution to soil fertility. The good management of soil has traditionally involved crop rotations so Dr Fiona Burnett and Ian Bingham of SAC have explained how oil seed rape best fits the rotation systems.