Arable Farming - CF Fertilisers

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REPRODUCED BY KIND PERMISSION OF ARABLE FARMING
FEATURE PRECISION FARMING
One Yorkshire farmer is making his first foray into precision farming with real-time sensing
technology to help him use nitrogen more accurately and improve yields. Teresa Rush reports.
Sensing a way to make
better use of nitrogen
dvances in geoinformatics offer
the potential for
almost unimagined precision in
the way we farm. But often the
challenge is how to use these
new technologies to deliver real
benefits in practical farming
situations.
That has been the issue for
Yorkshire farmer Neil Welburn
who, although interested in
and well informed on precision
farming technologies, has continued to question their value
to the bottom line of his farming business. But that looks set
to change.
Mr Welburn farms 243
hectares at Cross Hill Farm,
Balne, near Goole, with his wife
Deirdre, son Chris and daughter Claire. He is clearly proud
to describe the arable and beef
unit as a family farm, but
equally is frank in his observation changes have been
required to ensure his son and
daughter could come into the
business after college. The most
significant of these has been the
setting up of what today is a
600-head bull beef unit, run by
his son Chris.
On a wide range of soil
types, from blowing sands
through to heavy clays, and
A
Isaria project partners
JGrowHow UK, ADAS UK,
Precise Crop Nutrition,
Patchwork Technology,
Syngenta, Chris HarryThomas Consultancy, Hill
Court Farm Research
MAY 2015
ARABLE
FARMING
Neil Welburn is among a group of farmers involved in a project developing the Isaria input management system.
with a complex cropping
programme taking in 12 different crops, the arable enterprise
would appear well-placed to
benefit from precision farming
approaches.
Sceptical
Yet, until recently, Mr Welburn
has been ‘sceptical of sensors’
as he puts it. He does, however,
admit to a longstanding interest in the concept of variable
rate applications, for seed and
fertiliser in particular, but
where these have been made to
date it has been done using visual assessment as a guide and
using the forward speed of the
tractor to achieve the variation.
And the approach has served
him pretty well. Winter wheat
yields on the farm last harvest
averaged 10.3 tonnes/ha and
winter oilseed rape 3.7t/ha.
However, last season Mr
Welburn took a first step along
the road to adopting precision
technology by becoming one of
a group of farmers involved in
developing the use of the Isaria
precision input system (see AF,
February 2015) in the UK, as
part of a project to enable more
accurate N fertiliser and PGR
management through real-time
decision-making in the field.
Among the project partners are
precision farming proponent
and farmer Chris HarryThomas, fertiliser business
GrowHow, ADAS and others
(see ‘Isaria project partners’ panel,
left).
The obvious question to put
to Mr Welburn is: Why? And
the answer comes readily.
“My aim is to improve
Neil Welburn
yields. I think my crops could
be pushed harder,” he says.
All of the wheats grown
on-farm are first wheats, with
Horatio, Claire, Leeds and Solo
making up the variety mix. The
target yield is 10t/ha, but while
Mr Welburn achieved this yield
as an average last harvest, he
feels he could improve on X
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REPRODUCED BY KIND PERMISSION OF ARABLE FARMING
FEATURE PRECISION FARMING
Cross Hill cropping
JMaize, winter barley, winter
wheat, oilseed rape, spring
beans, sugar beet, grass
(two-year leys for black-grass
control), potatoes (land
swap), carrots, peas,
parsnips (land swap)
the consistency of yields across
his wheat crop, although the
wide range of soil types is a
challenge. “I do feel the newer
varieties need more N,” he
adds.
His first encounter with Isaria was at Agritechnica in 2012
and he is one of the first growers in the UK to use the system
under the new project, which is
funded under the Government’s AgriTech strategy.
Last year he used the technology on 81ha of his own
wheat, 40.5ha each of Volume
hybrid barley and hybrid
177kg/ha on and in another
451kg/ha of 34.5N.
“The field we put the lower
amount on has been manured
every year since 2002 and was
very even. The other field was
very variable. We used Isaria
on a two point scan. I would
probably have put 200-220kg
on the 177kg area and I wouldn’t have gone any higher than
380kg in the other field.
Even fields
“At flowering we couldn’t
believe how even both fields
were. One did 1.49t/acre, the
other 1.51t/acre over the
weighbridge.”
He says his first season’s
experience can best be illustrated by the speed of the
combining last harvest.
“In a normal year I would
be driving at between 3.55kph, driving to the loss monitor. Last year I couldn’t vary
outside 3.9-4.1kph without
MAY 2015
ARABLE
FARMING
oilseed rape (DK Cabernet and
Incentive) and about 405ha of
contract work across 12 farms.
He experimented with the
system’s ‘absolute’ (application
rate is entirely controlled by
Isaria system) and ‘two point
modes (measurements at two
representative areas are given
an application value, which is
used to determine the shape of
the application rate control
curve) in his wheat and the latter calibration in barley and
oilseed rape.
“My aim is to move nitrogen
to where it is going to work
best – and not waste it. We are
trying for more yield, rather
than saving costs,” says Mr
Welburn.
A particular test for the system is his use of significant
quantities of farmyard manure
(FYM) – from the beef unit and
bought-in – and biosolids.
“We are trying to put the
manure on pre-oilseed rape
and post-oilseed rape and on
the maize land. We muck out
every time we sell cattle. I am
trying to get rape off to a good
start and the wheat off to a
good start to get away from the
slugs after the rape.” FYM
application rates are typically
25-35t/ha.
N applications
His experiences to date with
Isaria have been on the whole
positive, although he admits it
has been difficult at times to
resist ‘tinkering’ with application rates when the sensor’s
assessment of N requirement
differed from his experience or
instinct.
“The thing I found difficult
was when it wasn’t putting on
what I wanted to,” he says.
He typically makes three,
sometimes four, nitrogen applications to his wheat and used
Isaria last season for the second
and third dressings.
“We could see it worked
with one [pass] and certainly
two scans help even crops up.
“In barley and OSR we do
two point mode. You scan
what you classify as a poor area
and then you decide what nitrogen you want to put on that
poor area and then you scan a
better area and from that it will
work out the application rate.
“We were growing hybrid
barley last year, so I tried to
close the parameters up to the
Syngenta recommendation but
I wanted also to use the Isaria
to even it up. We put fairly
tight parameters on it but we
did vary it and we did 3.75t/
acre of barley last year, so I’m
happy with that.”
Some of the variations in N
applications generated by the
system have been surprising.
“We’ve two fields of oilseed
rape I wish I had photographed
pre-fert spreading last year. In
one field it [Isaria] put
The kit
rNew Holland T6150
tractor with Autocommand
r6.9-metre Isaria sensor
incorporating two sensor
heads scanning 0.5m band
of crop
r24m spread width KRM
M2W fertiliser spreader
rBluetooth connection
between sensor and Isaria
tablet device
rGPS mapping
rStandard RS232 lead
connection between tablet
and spreader
The Isaria system is now in its second season of use at Cross Hill Farm.
affecting the yield loss. The
crops were even,” he says.
After one season’s use, he is
leaning towards favouring the
two point mode. One of the
challenges of the ‘absolute’
mode is assessing the total
amount of fertiliser which is
going to be applied – particu-
larly significant if fertiliser has
to be carted over any distance.
“I like the two point mode
because it gives me more control. Absolute works entirely on
algorithms – Isaria works out
how much the crops needs to
achieve the target tonnage.”
Plans for this season include
making better use of Isaria as a
scanning tool. “I want to get the
frame on the sprayer. We are
perhaps missing a trick. We
perhaps should be putting it on
the sprayer more and scanning
when I’m not actually spreading fertiliser, and building up a
picture of the crop.”