The main focus of Rothamsted when it was set up in 1843 was to improve fertiliser practice. So it’s sobering to reflect on where we are nowadays with nitrogen recommendations for crops. The depressing fact is that, as an industry, we haven’t got much …
There have been some very doom laden studies on the financial implications of the Drinking Water Directive on pesticide availability. These suggest that herbicides relied upon to control black-grass in oilseed rape could disappear, with dire financial …
I said a few weeks ago that I would return to the 1970 edition of the Approved Products for Farmers and Growers. In those days approval meant that the product efficacy had been assessed and ‘it did what was said on the tin’. Efficacy assessment was not …
I went badly off-course in last week’s blog. It started with a suggestion that I was going to discuss some aspects of the contents of the 1970 edition of Approved Products for Farmers and Growers . Perhaps this objective will be met this week. First of …
We went out for lunch last Saturday. The weather was glorious and all the tables in the garden were occupied, so unfortunately we had to sit inside. The conversation soon got around to managing risk when growing wheat in low rainfall areas of Australia. I …
Travels across Australia - cont I visited a farm today near Clare in South Australia. It’s in a relatively high yielding area; achieving over 6 tonnes/ha of wheat last year. This year the soil is still dry throughout the profile, so yields are predicted …
You can have enough of kookabarras. To be fair, when this iconic bird 'laughs' at 30 minutes after sunset it’s great. But, it can be wearing after several mornings of being woken up 30 minutes before sunrise by the same cry. I’ve visited a few farms and …
I’ve been speaking at series of meetings in South Australia, New South Wales and Victoria, organised by the GRDC, HGCA’s Australian equivalent. However, the GRDC budget is a little higher at A$110 million (about £75 million). The Government provides GRDC …
The wheat belt in Western Australia is vast and not what I envisaged at all, expecting large, flat and square fields. The fields were large...but they were certainly not flat or square. In fact the landscape was very similar to the rolling English …
Indulge me. Just one more reflective blog on Australian farming. The picture of the tree fern recovering from a wildfire is a metaphor for the resilience of the Australian countryside and agriculture. Perhaps the area of the least resilience is the small …
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