AHDB Strategic Cereal Farms aim to putting cutting-edge research and innovation into practice on commerical farms. Each farm hosts field-scale demonstrations, with experiences shared with the wider farming community. Niab has partnered with AHDB to deliver the new Strategic Cereal Farm Midlands. Will Oliver hosts Strategic Cereal Farm Midlands. The farm is keen to invetsigate how to optimise inputs, whilst maintaining yield and improving rotational management.

Niab's Farming Systems and Pathology teams have collaborated to deliver three inital workpackages:

1. Management of maize residue for establishment and disease risks of a following winter wheat crop in a direct drill system
2. Optimising organic amendments in nutrient management planning for winter wheat
3. Testing novel technologies to improve disease and nitrogen management in winter wheat (in collaboration with SporeSense, a technology company that uses AI biosensors to aid early disease detection)

Partners

Funders

Duration

2025-2031

More information on the project website

Long-term monitoring studies are a valuable strategic resource that are difficult to maintain through short term or commercial funding and hard to replace once lost. Within East Anglia (notably at Morley) there are several long-term studies that provide unique data and are excellent research platforms. 

Morley Long Term Studies (LoTS) is a continuation of Niab's original National Agronomy Centre and MENTOR work, covering many of the long-term strategic field trials, including STAR and the Saxmundham Experimental site (est. 1899) and long-term wheat, barley and sugar beet fungicide response trials. These trials have focused on long term strategic agronomy and monitoring.

David Clarke, Niab's soils and farming systems research technician,  introduces the 120-year-old TMAF-funded experiment site in Suffolk, studying P&K fertilisers v FYM, including what's gone before and what's happening now, in this video from 2021.

PROJECT TIMINGS

2019-2030

RESOURCES

Outputs include annual reports as well as peer-reviewed academic papers and conference presentations as well as farmer-facing materials provided for the Niab and TMAF websites.

• Saxmundham Experimental Site Report 2023 (WW23-9513) - issued July 2024
• Saxmundham Experimental Site Report 2022 (WW22-9513) - issued May 2023
  Measuring and comparing the response to crop and soil from the application of granular and foliar phosphate and potassium based mineral fertilisers, manures and organic amendments.
• TMAF Saxmundham site webpages
• Saxmundham Experimental Site Report 2021 (WW21-9513) - issued May 2022

Fungicide timing response monitoring
Studying the yield responses to each of the component spray timings within a fungicide spray programme on winter wheat at Morley

• 2022/23 season (WW23-05501) - issued June 2024
• 2021/22 season (WW22-05501) - issued March 2023
• 2020/21 season (WW21-05501) - issued May 2022

Studying the yield responses to each of the component spray timings within a fungicide spray programme on winter barley at Morley.

• 2022/23 season (WB23-05502) - issued June 2024
• 2021/22 season (WB22-05502) - issued March 2023
• 2020/21 season (WB21-05502) - issued April 2023

Sugar beet

Periodic harvest of sugar beet and fungicide interaction
Determining the growth rate and yield benefit of sugar beet treated during the late summer and autumn with and without a triazole and strobilurin fungicide programme

• 2022/23 season (SBT23-810) - issued July 2024
• 2021/22 season (SBT22-810) - issued May 2023
• 2020/21 season (SBT21-810 - issued May 2022

Periodic harvest of sugar beet and biorepellent interaction

• 2022/23 season (SBT23-820) - issued July 2024
• 2021/22 season (SBT22-820) - issued May 2023

Studies of the effectiveness of Frass as a bio-repellent
Examining the benefit of sugar beet treated with Frass as a biorepellent to reduce aphid transmission of virus yellows.

• 2020/21 season (SBT21-820) - issued May 2022
   

Event posters

View and download research and information posters used at open days and trade events - available on the Niab Knowledge Hub

A series of long-term studies seeking to develop bio-sustainable cropping systems for conventional arable cropping.

The New Farming Systems programme is funded by The Morley Agricultural Foundation (TMAF) and The JC Mann Trust and is being carried at Morley, in Norfolk, on a sandy clay loam soil.

Research within the NFS programme is seeking to maintain or increase system output while at the same time seeking to improve efficiency, sustainability and resilience within conventional arable cropping systems. Experiments are ostensibly examining three inter-related themes: fertility building, approaches to tillage and the use of soil amendments.

The experiments within the NFS programme are fully replicated, large plot studies that use farm scale equipment and techniques and include:

• MORE: the use of soil amendments - manure and organic replacement experiment
• Bio-sustainable systems for conventional arable cropping
• Evaluating cultivation approaches
• Fertility building and cover crops
• The use of soil amendments - green waste compost

Event posters

View and download research and information posters used at open days and trade events - available on the Niab Knowledge Hub

Long-term rotation studies are rare in our industry due to short-term commercial and financial pressures, but they can provide powerful agronomic and financial information for UK farmers.

Part of Niab’s charitably funded strategic rotation research programme, the STAR (Sustainability Trial for Arable Rotations) project is a fully replicated field-scale study, based in Suffolk and supported by The Felix Thornley Cobbold Trust.

It has been examining the interaction between four cultivation methods and four rotations since 2005 with findings demonstrating clear impacts of rotation and cultivation on agronomy and production. AHDB-funded research, using a set of long-term studies including STAR, examined the impact of adopting inversion tillage or non-inversion tillage approaches in cereal production systems and concluded that there was no strong reason not to use non-inversion tillage in preference to ploughing.

Open Day

Niab runs an annual STAR Open Day, usually in either May or June depending on the rotation. Further details and booking available late spring on the Niab Event Hub

Seminars

Online seminar - 4 June 2024
Online seminar - 27 May 2021

Resources

REPORT: STAR - Year 18 (2022/23) project report - 2024
LEAFLET: STAR - summary flyer (2022)
REPORT: STAR - Year 17 (2021/22) project report - 2023
REPORT: STAR - Year 16 (2020/21) project report - 2022
REPORT: STAR - Year 15 (2019/20) project report - 2021
REPORT: STAR - Year 14 (2018/19) project report - 2020
REPORT: The STAR Project - long-term report Years 1-10 (2006–2015)
RESEARCH PAPER: Sustainability Trial in Arable Rotations (STAR project): a long term farming systems study looking at rotation and cultivation practice. Stobart, RM, Morris, N (2011). Aspects of Applied Biology 113
RESEARCH PAPER: Platforms to test and demonstrate sustainable soil management: integration of major UK field experiments. Stobart, RM, Hallett, PD, George, TS, Morris, N, Newton, AC, Valentine, TA, McKenzie, BM (2014). Aspects of Applied Biology 127

Event posters

View and download research and information posters used at open days and trade events - available on the Niab Knowledge Hub.