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Farmers are being encouraged to get out of the tractor and start digging to check for compaction and soil structure problems.

Shallow tillage systems are producing soils with a higher resistance to penetration which could potentially restrict rooting and the ability of the crop to fully exploit the soil profile, warns NIAB TAG. 

Results from NIAB TAG’s STAR Project, now in its ninth year, have highlighted changes in soil characteristics between differing cultivation approaches in the study. 

NIAB TAG’s National Agronomy Centre (NAC) initiative is an impartial platform to promote best practice for profitable, sustainable and efficient arable crop production and provides open access to research and practical information.

The NAC Open Days are a key knowledge exchange route for this provision. These free to attend events deliver a mix of indoor exhibits, seminars and field based demonstrations, providing objective information on a range of policy and agronomy issues, including variety and fungicides and weed management.

Agronomists, farmers and growers can benefit from a new training academy which will help keep people working in agricultural businesses of all sizes up to date with the latest industry technologies and techniques.

Officially launching today at Cereals, the Agri-tech Register and Training for Innovation and Skills (ARTIS) academy is unlike other training programmes currently available.

NIAB is leading a £2 million Defra-funded research project to identify the most effective practices and test potential new farming systems to increase farm productivity while reducing environmental impacts and enhancing ecosystem services.

‘Project 1 – Integrated Farm Management for improved economic, environmental and social performance’ is one of three studies forming Defra’s £4.5 million Sustainable Intensification Research Platform, known as SIP.

Due to the current complex and diverse nature of the yellow rust race situation in the UK, it has not been possible to identify more than two diversification groups – those varieties that are resistant as adult plants to all of the pathotypes identified from the UKCPVS data, and those that are susceptible to one or more of them.

NIAB has released an updated information flyer on its resynthesised, or superwheat, wheat breeding programme - download the PDF here

NIAB is leading a project to provide a home for the growing agri-tech industry in the East of England, thanks to a £0.5 million investment from the Eastern Agri-Tech Initiative, created by the Greater Cambridge Greater Peterborough Enterprise Partnership (LEP) and partners.

Access the latest independent advice and research on plant breeding, varieties, crop agronomy, soils and plant innovation with an afternoon of indoor seminars, exhibits and field and glasshouse demonstrations.