“Use careful watch; choose trusty sentinels” [Richard III to the Duke of Norfolk] My father was a farmer, county councillor and history nut. The Leicestershire County Council offices were in the middle of the city and he used the designated car-park at …
Thirty years ago I was working as the ADAS liaison officer at the Weed Research Organisation (WRO). This was one of the first research institutes to be closed; perhaps one reason for that may have been because by that point there was an effective range …
When the wax finish on your car is still good, rain droplets will ‘bead-up’ and not really wet the surface as they are repelled by the wax. The impermeability of the wax on the car’s body and the surface tension in the rain droplets keep the water from …
Did you know that the recent horsemeat scandal was a result of the wet summer of 1845? Well, there is a link but you may find it rather tenuous. The weather in the summer of 1845 was awful; cold and extremely wet. It all sounds horribly familiar. Not only …
I read a great quote the other day: “ Insanity is a perfectly rational adjustment to an insane world ” Scottish psychologist R D Laing Quotes like these have an immediate impression if you can apply them to something you have just experienced. The fact …
There were a series of extremely mild winters when I was working as an ADAS field adviser in coastal Essex in the 1970s. Perhaps as a result of these weather conditions, newly emerged peas were often infested with thrips and the debate was whether or not …
We recently spent a few days clearing a house of my wife’s mother’s possessions. It was both an emotional and sobering experience. Memories and mementos of a long and eventful life were packed into a few cardboard boxes in the back of a borrowed transit …
There’s always a lot of interest from other countries as to how we achieve our high winter wheat yields. In some parts of the world there is a firm belief that if they use inputs in a similar way to us then they would get similar yields. I have to explain …
There is an increasing acceptance that we’re going to see a lot of land in true fallow this summer. This is because in many situations there is little prospect that a profitable crop can now be sown. Consequently, we’ve been receiving queries on the …
Many of us have got by until now without having to worry about endocrine disruption. Well, I’m afraid that over the next couple of years we’ll be made only too aware of the subject. The fall-out from this issue could result in reduced EU food production …
Niab
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