New Zealand Day 17 - Wheat Crops Under the Microscope

The first meeting of the day was with Eric Watson who farms just to the East of Ashburton.  A huge thank you to Eric for taking the time to meet up, as I only made contact a couple of days ahead of the meeting.  Eric has a great farm of about 490 Ha which can be irrigated through various pumps and bore holes, with the bulk of the farm being on a ring main with variable speed drives for the pumps.  This means that irrigation equipment can be moved without needing to switch equipment off when moving rain runs and as irrigators stop and start the pump speed slows or accelerates to match the loading saving electricity.  All of the crops are irrigated on the farm with wheat crops receiving somewhere around 200mm.  IN addition to wheat Eric is growing seed crops of rye grass, fescue grasses, plantain, chicory, botchy (Chinese Cabbage) and spinach.

The crops that we looked at where incredibly clean with a robust fungicide strategy being used.  Every day the crop stays green during senescence a further 200Kk of grain is grown.  So keep it green for a week that's nearly 1.5t of extra yield!  Many crops have been under pressure from septoria  Eric's fungicide had wooded well and the crops where very clean top to bottom.  

Seed rate and variety choice took up a lot of our conversational time as large crops of wheat require a population that is not too thick in order to enable light to intercept the canopy and get to the second  and third leaves.  Shorter more upright flags will act as solar panels rather than big floppy leaves, something that I found hard to believe but logical after I gave it a little thought.  Seed varieties and numbers are not the whole story, nitrogen rates and timings are also key factors in growing large crops of wheat. I left Eric and headed south for a lunch meeting with fellow Nuffield Scholar Michael Tayler who farms further down the coast.  Michael grows wheat, potatoes, barley, peas and carrots.  These carrots are grown for juicing and are larger and sweeter than a normal carrot.  The juice is pressed and stored before being shipped and sold as a health food drink.  Michael did his Nuffield project on 'New Technologies and Arable Farming'. So we had a lot in common!

After lunch I drove still further south to Oamaru to meet Chris Dennison, who held the Guinness Book of Records Wheat yield at 15.015t/H in 2003.  Chris and Kay's farm is literally right on the coast, with a 50ft drop from the last field down onto the beach.  This climate, coupled with fairly heavy clay, with good structure means high yields are always a potential.  In addition to wheat Chris also grows rye grass for seed, oilseed rape and spring barley.  Rye grass is potentially the highest return but also has the highest risk.  There are opportunities to make 'balage' as a first cut, then seed and then dairy support or balage again from these fields. It demonstrates to me that way that opportunities are sought out over the whole cycle, not just focusing on the one crop in the field.   

Chris grows several varieties of wheat, from a couple of breeders including one from the UK in the highest yielding situations, including Oakley.  A planting date, equivalent to (UK) 1st week September and plant populations calculated.  The net result is a good plant population with somewhere about 600 ears depending of tiller numbers.  This is slightly in the lap of the gods depending on the kindness of the winter and how much tillering the crop does.  A fairly intense fungicide strategy is required to keep the leaves green, for the extra yield at the end of maturity.  The yield comes from a combination of ears per m2, numbers of grains per and weight of the individual grain sites.  Irrigation is also applied through the later part of the season to help with grain fill.  Chris is the Chairman of the local community irrigation board.  Water is taken from the Waitaki River and put through the irrigation scheme.  About 15% of the total annual river flow is used for agriculture, so there's plenty to spare.

It was a fabulous opportunity for me to spend time with Chris and his family.  I learnt so much about the crop canopy structure and what is needed to achieve it.  After the trip around the farm and a delicious roast lamb dinner, we headed out to the local pub with a neighbouring farmer, which was highly entertaining.  Thank you, once again to everyone for hosting me today it was great fun!    

Nuffield Day 16 -20 by 2020 - Foundation for Arable Research Site

Today turned out to be one of the most interesting an informative days of the trip so far.  I met up with Rob Craigie, from FAR at Innovation Place just south of Christchurch.  We set off in the drizzle to a field where the trials for New Zealand’s 20 by 20 project are being conducted.

The field is dry land, although there is the ability to water if required and reasonably well bodied silt clay loam following two years of clover.  The trial site has three drilling dates, February, March and April. Which would equate to August onwards, back n the UK.

The trials were very in depth examining how the crop, the main cultivar being Wakanui, develops from the different seed drilling dates, populations and how they are managed.  The results will be very interesting indeed.

The very early drilled crops were very forward and kept growing through the winter which allowed them to put on far too much biomass.  

As a result many of the tillers died back and new tillers had to sprout out from the base of the plant making them weak and vulnerable to lodging.  Some of this was managed in the trial by cutting and removing the biomass, and in the main field area sheep were used to reduce over all biomass.  This could have a detrimental effect on the yield but it could be better than having the crop lodge.

One of the main trials is looking at higher nitrogen and fungicide use.  This trial is applying an extra 100Kg of nitrogen to the crop and increasing the fungicide program.  Some of the plants were very thick and there was some lodging; which made the plant growth regulator trials also fascinating.  Chlormequat and Moddus mixes were being used at different timings giving some very interesting physical differences in plant height.

 

The fungicide trials were also showing some signs that epoxyconazole was not as effective against septoria as it used to be.  Samples will be sent to the UK to check for resistance but the disease could take the shine off many of the plots final yields.  The photo above shows an untreated plot that has sen almost stripped of any green leaf.  Bearing mind 45% of the yield comes form the flag (top) leaf this doesn't look good.  A huge thanks to the FAR team and especially Rob Craigie for showing me around the trial site today.  I look forward to hearing about the results after harvest sometime around February.

I left Rob and headed on to meet Richard Green, and family, the director of Nuffield New Zealand who was my host overnight.  During the conversation Richard suggested that I meet up with two other top arable producers over the next couple of days as I make my way south.  The diary certainly is filling up rapidly now!

FAR - A Long Long Way to Roam

Yet again I find myself lost with the right words to describe the day at Arable Research in Action, organised by FAR, (Foundation For Arable Research).  The annual event is held near Chertsey in the Ashburton District on the Canterbury Plain's and provides levy paying farmers with a fantastic opportunity to look at the research currenty being undertaken by FAR.  The weather was fantastic, not an annual occurrence and the turnout was in excess of 300 farmers.  The event was organised very well with a total of 12 different half hour slots with growers able to choose 8, 4 in the morning and 4 in the afternoon.

Not all were relevant to my Nuffield topic but never the less very interesting for an insight into where research is going.  I started off looking at Nutrient budgets.  Interestingly there is a program called 'Overseer' which calculated estimated Nitrogen leaching per hectare over the rotation of the farm.  Different rotations varied, leaching between 4 and 46Kg/N/Ha/year, calculated over 22 farms in the Ashburton district. N leaching increased dramatically where cows are involved, especially in their urine patches!  The next session was on Glyphosate resistance when spraying field boundaries.  Resistance is starting to become a problem in rye grasses on the field boundaries and there is concern about them spreading into the main paddock.

At 12.00 I listened to Lise Nistrup Jørgensen from the Aarthus University, Denmark, talking about managing disease resistant to fungicides.  A problem we are facing in the UK to a certain degree, especially with Septoria.  Part of the resistance strategy should be to mix up different active ingredients but legislation in the UK is limiting our choices so the chance of building resistance in increasing thanks to European Legislation.  How's that for forward thinking when we have more people to feed in the world and we're trying to do it with one hand potentially behind our backs.  The next slot was really interesting looking at early sowing to achieve the right populations to achieve higher yields.  Populations and cultivars (varieties) are the key to this, as is the type of wheat grown.  Feed wheat due to its unusually slower growth habit has a better chance of not being too forward and disease susceptible, so a higher chance of the right spring population.

After lunch there was a very interesting talk on stubble burning and the case was being made that New Zealand farmers are a special case!  I have a few doubt about this argument coming from a climate where we can grow as much, if not more, wetter straw and still manage to establish crops in that residue.  There are arguments about weed seed control, like blackgrass and the ever present slugs, but the value to the soil is greater as humus than ash.  Where the situation varies is when trying to plant clover seeds under minimal cultivation.  However cultivation or match dropping, is only done in this situation because the current drills will not cope with the crop residue.  There is a cure for this developed in the North Island.

The next two sessions were on disease control in barley and then the use of low rate fungicides which were very useful.  I talked afterwards to a few farmers about growth regulation in spring barley and a lot of modus and terpal is used to keep the plants standing and to reduce brackling.  Something we might need to look at back at home, where this year there were too many ears on or near the ground that the combine missed them.  I was also interested to hear more about a trial being conducted here in New Zealand at at home in the UK with NIABTAG.  They are looking at high yielding wheat crops with identical treatments in both countries to see how the crops respond and yield to the same treatments in different climates.  The results of that would be fascinating.

During the event I had a good look at some establishment trials in wheat.  There was about 6 different methods of establishment d=form two direct drilling options, to a couple of topdown and drill options and finally a plough based system.  It would be really interested in seeing the final yield results of this trial as there was very little ego choose between all of the systems.  But it doesn't just come down to yield it should be margin of all inputs and establishment costs.  That is the key to profitability.  If you happen to be passing the trial site next year then I can highly recommend dropping in for a look around and introducing yourself to the very friendly team.

Nuffield Adventures Part 2

So it's finally here, take off day.  The first leg of my Nuffield personal study to investigate whether or not it is possible to grow a 20T/Ha wheat crop in the UK in the next 20 years.  It's been a long time in the planning stages with e-mails and skype messages, even finding contacts through twitter, but today is the day I head to Heathrow to set off for the first stop Calgary.  So if you are in Calgary and see a couple of lost Nuffield Scholars do stop us and hello!  I am travelling with Andrew Williamson from Bridgnorth in Shropshire for the first few days which I'm looking forward too.  It will be great to share some of the experience with a mate.

I'll be looking at growing wheat in the Canadian Prairies, the Great Plaines, the Palouse and the Dakota's of America, talking to farmers, scientists and agronomists.  It will be a great adventure as well as bringing some important messages back to UK Agriculture and new ideas for the home farm.  I will try and update the blog as much as I can to keep you all posted about the journey I'm about to embark on! 

NIABTAG Visit to the Gene Pool

Monday the 13th May was another day to remember on my Nuffield adventure.  My visit was to the HQ of NIABTAG near Cambridge, who just the evening before had been on Countryfile with a brand new development in wheat breeding!  I was met by Bill Clarke, to whom I am very grateful, he spent at least 3 hours showing me around the site and detailing the very valuable work that is being undertaken at the centre.  Bill explained about NIAB, what it does with the recommended lists, the Innovation farms and the wider extension work to the farmer members.  The membership only make up about 10% of the income stream, with the balance being from commercial work or contract work from industry or the BBSRC.  We spoke about wheat growing and the challenges that we face trying to produce more from less, with less.  How is that supposed to happen we can't work miracles, especially when you look at the potential to ban some or all triazoles from the fungicide battle.

Something that does resemble a kind of miracle is the work that Sarah and Emma are doing in the labs to multiply up the engineered seeds.  It was fascinating to hear them speak with such knowledge and passion about a subject that is quite alien to me and so very specialised.  It's great to know that people like this our working on our behalf making our industry better and more productive.    

It was a great visit and I was allowed to see first hand the stages that went into the creation of the synthetic wheat featured on Country File the previous day, demonstrating a potential yield increase of up to 30 % over our existing varieties.  Although the work is a long way from becoming available on the farm, the genetic engineers and plant breeders are working hard to help feed our growing world population, of that I am sure.

Nuffield - Rothamsted Revisited

Well here's the deal, this picture demonstrates to me the challenge that we have set ourselves very clearly. Don't be mistaken though the 20 by 20 is in 20 years not by 2020.  The aim of the project at Rothamsted, under the main heading of 20:20 is to provide the knowledge-base and tools to increase UK wheat yield potential to 20 tonnes/ha in 20 years time.

I turned up on Thursday the 14th February to visit Dr Malcolm Hawkesford to start off with.  One of the main areas of interest I picked up on was the aspect of light capture.  Effectively as farmers we are turning sunlight into food, so how can we maximise that genetic potential?  Currently the yield gap between the recommended list varieties and what is produced on farm is getting wider.  Therefore we have the genetic potential to get to these higher yields, there must therefore be something holding back  the farm yields?  Not sure what that is yet but when I find it I will let you know!  Malcolm's team is working with other research organisations as part of a wider drive to learn more about wheat genetics and how yield is built.  One key aspect of this is Carbon Dioxide.  If more CO2 can get into the plant, faster and with the plant using less energy, more carbon can be manufactured and turned into grain.  The plants therefore become more efficient.  Climate change will result in more CO2 in the atmosphere so some yield improvement will come through this process anyway but not at the pace required to feed the worlds population.  One aspect I hadn't considered was looking at the quality of wheat being grown.  A higher yield will usually have a lower protein content (nitrogen dilution) so this may effect the desire to maximise wheat yield for some markets.

After a quick lunch I caught up with Professor Martin Parry, Head of Plant Science who is leading the project.  Martin explained the mathematical modelling that has been done to ascertain the maximum yield potential of wheat using the best characteristics form current varieties.  We also talked about the efficiencies of photosynthesis between different crops (wheat poor and maize good), about light interception and how the roots need enough water to maintain maximum photosynthesis.  This could be a limiting factor in the future.  If the plant has enough water though, increased photosynthesis will result in a better water use efficiency i.e. it uses less water per calorific output.  In order to negate the effects of a late season drought could varieties mature earlier, but would this compromise the requirement for a long slow grain fill, or looking the the research from the John Innes Centre, speeding up the time to flowering to help bring the whole process forward?  Lots of questions still be be investigated!  My thanks again to Martin and Malcolm for spending time telling me about their research.