Gates opening to research

Balbirnie Home Farms will be opening field gates to fellow growers to view the trials work being done under the banner of the AHDB’S Scottish strategic cereals farm.

The project is in the second year of its six-year research programme, and trials include using cover crops ahead of directdrilled spring barley and assessing the impact on soil, biodiversity and barley crop development.

The farm has also experimented with sowing dates for spring barley establishment, comparing nitrogen application methods to improve efficiency, and testing a crop throughout the season, then adjusting the nutrition to see if it improves health enough to withstand pests and diseases in the absence of pesticides.

The open day will kick off with an introduction to the strategic farm network from Fiona Geary, AHDB’S knowledge transfer officer, who said the work was about putting cutting-edge research and innovation into practice on commercial farms around the UK.

Balbirnie Farms manager David Aglen will provide an overview of the farm.

The project hopes that by sharing the findings it will give other farmers the confidence to use similar approaches and data.

Mr Aglen said: “We joined the strategic farm network not long before the start of the pandemic so we could only use the virtual world to introduce the farm and our research objectives. This resulted in a series of films and webinars to showcase what we have been doing and report on the results of the initial trials.”

The event will include a series of “how to” sessions run by guest experts, including a session looking at how to carry out a Brix test as an indication of photosynthetic activity and how this result may correlate with crop health.

There will also be practical sessions on how to do infiltration and soil structure assessments, and how to carry out biodiversity assessments on-farm to contribute to an effective IPM strategy.

The day will conclude with a panel session which will discuss the future of farming, the environment, and how to produce food more sustainably.

The tour of the trial sites will take place on June 29 from 1-5pm at Treaton Farm, Star, Fife, KY7 6LJ.

■ To register visit https:// ahdb.org.uk/events/ strategic-cereal-farmscotland-open-day

HOSTS: Johnnie Balfour and David Aglen from Balbirnie Home Farms.