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🧵 OUT NOW: In our latest #AGRONOMY newsletter we’re sharing solutions to support future farm resilience. In this issue: ✅ At a time when the agricultural sector is prioritising safer, more efficient spray applications on farm, Frontier agronomist, Kerris Poland, shares the advantages of using a closed transfer system. ✅ Crop nutrition technical advisor, Ed Downing, explains how our field grain analysis service can help to determine how effective fertiliser programmes are, giving you the insights to help optimise future strategies. ✅ Technical lead on crop production, Dr Paul Fogg, talks through fungicide timings based on the wet weather we've experienced and touches on the value of new chemistry. ✅ Frontier agronomist, Ryan Overton and farmer, Simon Quince, share how they've boosted sugar beet crops through the considered use of biostimulants, including IntraCrop Limited's Status. ✅ Ahead of this year's open days, knowledge exchange manager, Michelle Nuttall, highlights some of the work underway across our extensive network of #3DThinking trial sites to support future planning. Read the full issue: https://loom.ly/vWee5CQ #FarmRotation #AgTech #SustainableFarming #AdvancingAgriculture #Innovation #ResearchandDevelopment

Another year of Premium Crops - a division of Cefetra Ltd and Sencrop Live agronomy updates 📑 Excited to continue this journey together this year and provide the best updates for agronomy professionals regarding Soil Health and Weather Updates. 🔄 Soil Health after high rainfall 🌧 The wet end to the year 2023 and into early 2024 means soils are saturated. High-intensity rainfall and flooding are not good for soil health and nutrient levels. Lower residual nitrogen, sulphur and phosphate levels as well as compromised root systems of earlier drilled cereal crops need to be addressed when considering spring fertiliser applications.  Yara International listed the challenges well: ➡ Nutrient availability- lost via leaching and denitrification from soils ➡ Anaerobic soils- soil pores are full of water instead of air, which soil organisms need to survive and to allow nutrient movement from the soils to the roots ➡ Compromised rooting- waterlogged soils slow root development. Normally roots and secondary roots grow out into the soil in search of nutrients and water. Without secondary roots, plant growth will be affected. To encourage root growth P&K is important, applying these in the spring will aid recovery. Depending on the sowing date the crop may have not had time in the autumn to tiller and it is essential to prevent the loss of tillers due to insufficient nutrition in winter wheat. 🌱 In trials, it has been seen a 20% increase in tillers at a rate of 70-100kgN/ha rather than 40kgN/ha in that first application. Don’t forget sulphur and micronutrient nutrients too.  If in doubt, get crop tissue or sap tested to see if a particular nutrient is missing. 📈 Yara Link below:   https://lnkd.in/eKQmMxzA

Can we measure soil health? In our latest blog, our VP of Agronomy Wes Anderson discusses emerging lab tests that show promise in adding additional information to what we already have with #SWATMAPS and regular soil lab tests, and how it ultimately helps guide the accuracy of variable rate applications even further. Read the blog 👉 https://bit.ly/4ab1CPs

Knowledge is power, especially with what precision agronomy has to offer. The most successful plans leverage that knowledge to continuously improve both economic and environmental sustainability on your farm. Read more about performance insights: https://lnkd.in/gV5e9Fw4

VERDESIAN LIFE SCIENCES US LLC Director of Agronomy, Row Crops, Mike Zwingman says one of the greatest agronomic challenges facing producers today is the multi-year drought pattern affecting the Corn Belt. Dig into that issue and how Verdesian is armed to help producers manage the pressure in our discussion with Mike: https://loom.ly/LKBgvp4

When should you plant spring crops? 🌱 Spring cereal sowing is ongoing despite wet conditions, with conventional winter cereal sowing windows long closed. Premium and Crops and Sencrop for Agronomy Professionals offer the next update of our agronomy series and invite you to our webinar TODAY at 4pm GMT “Spraying Windows and New Forecasts”. ⛅ Register here - https://buff.ly/3VGSiyg In tricky seasons, basics are fundamental. Spring planting timing should allow for flushing black grass, to create stale seed beds and aid weed control. Spray coverage and uptake is prioritised to reduce resistance risk. Later drilled crops, such as Spring Linseed and Canary Seed (both sown until May), provide a wider window for weed emergence and a greater use of glyphosate. Clean establishment creates competitive plant canopies against emerging weeds. Accurate forecasting can help identify correct cultivation strategies, as over-cultivation during prolonged dry spells reduces moisture, leading to slower and uneven emergence. Strong seed to soil contact is essential. On heavier soils, cloddy seedbeds can mask pests and weeds, reducing the effectiveness of applied herbicides. Pre-emergence herbicides require both seedbed structure and sufficient soil moisture for maximum impact. Direct drilling is an avenue to reducing moisture loss, however great care must be applied to ensure correct seed depth placement and slot closure behind the drill. Regardless of establishment method, soil health is at the centre of crop establishment.

New research has found that collaborative and agronomic weed management strategies can reduce the spread of Feathertop Rhodes grass (FTR) in Queensland and New South Wales. GRDC and industry partners found that when neighbouring land managers worked together and utilised integrated weed control tactics, infestations of highly mobile weeds like FTR were reduced. FTR is one of the most significant weed species in Queensland and NSW farming systems due to its widespread distribution, impact on grain yield, and its cost and difficulty to control. The weed is also rapidly becoming a problem in southern and western grain growing regions of Australia. Working with the Millmerran Landcare group in southern Queensland for the past two years, CSIRO researcher Brett Cocks has been assessing the impact of slashing roadsides. As part of this work, areas were slashed five times a year just prior to seed-set and at the end of the growing season. Mr Cocks says that one roadside site has been monitored for 14 months and preliminary results suggest frequent slashing is working. “We’re seeing very positive results so far, and it’s evident that roadside slashing may be a good option for controlling the movement of seed, but collaboration and consistency is key,” Mr Cocks said. In a bid to reduce the spread of weeds at paddock boundaries, the trial is also investigating how FTR competes with sorghum sown at different row spacings. “We are investigating whether we can manage the edge of the paddock separately from the rest of the paddock to control weed spread,” he said. “We have replicated trials in a grower’s paddock that adjoins the road, with sorghum sown at three different row spacings – 25 centimetres, 50cm and 100cm. “If growers are planting sorghum and have grass weed problems there are limited chemical control options available. We want to see if a feasible option for growers is to use agronomic practices, such as reduced row spacing around the edge of the paddock, to reduce the spread of weeds from paddock boundaries. It is early days, but Mr Cocks said the 25cm row spacing results were looking promising. “There are no weeds growing between the rows, compared with the 50cm and 100cm row spacings that are full of weeds," he said. Read the full article: https://bit.ly/3QmkmTv GRDC wishes to thank all research and development partners involved with the ‘Area wide management for cropping systems weeds’ project, including the Department of Agriculture and Fisheries (Queensland), Cotton Research and Development Corporation, AgriFutures Australia, CSIRO, The University of Queensland, University of Adelaide, #WollongongUniversity, Mallee Sustainable Farming, Landcare Australia, Irrigation Research and Extension Committee, Wine Australia, Toowoomba Regional Council and other local industry organisations. Photo: Nicole Baxter

A conversation with Edward Mukiibi, farmer, agronomist, activist, and current president of Slow Food, about modern input-heavy agrochemical agronomy #education, the disillusionment with agrochemicals, hybrid #seeds, and much more. #slowfood https://lnkd.in/eiSfFVN4

Is your OSR struggling with pests? 🐛 Welcome to the next agronomy update from Premium Crops and Sencrop for Agronomy Professionals. With most crops out in flower, keep an eye out for the Brassica Cabbage Seed Weevil. They are readily visible on flowering racemes on sunny days. Spray threshold is 1 weevil per 2 plants in the North of the UK or 1 per plant elsewhere. Do not combine an insecticide and fungicide as increases risk to bees. Communication between beekeepers and farmers is essential to reducing loss of bees, use beeconnected.org.uk When weevils lay eggs in the pods, they create a hole which allows the more damaging pod midge to lay eggs. Control of the pod midge is done by controlling the weevil and through managing the crop rotation. Headlands and narrow fields are more exposed. We recommended using fields that are at least 0.5km away from areas that have housed hosts in the previous couple of years. Future research 🔬 Rothamsted Research are researching the use of hi-tech optical sensors in fields to better monitor Pollen beetles in OSR crops. The new sensors recorded an increase in pollen beetles 2 days ahead of water traps and 4 days ahead of plant count. Understanding migration helps identify optimal management methods, in the case of OSR you may be able to estimate if the main migration will occur before flowering, and therefore if there is a risk of damage to the crop or not. There is known resistance of pyrethroids in pollen beetle so efficient use of insecticides is important. The sensors are so precise that researchers were able to record insects in flight and detect each insect’s wing beat frequency, which often differs from species to species. For instance, pollen beetles have a wing beat frequency of 120 Hz, so insects within the range of 100–140 Hz were considered pollen beetles. Pollen beetle density was related to the plant growth stage, with more beetles occurring on plants after the budding stage than before inflorescence development. “Our study suggests potential for precision agriculture to reduce insecticide use through targeting of pollen beetle aggregations - in other words treating only areas of the crop where pollen beetle density is high,” said Rothamsted’s Dr Sam Cook. ‘‘It is a promising tool for early warning of insect pest immigration.” The aggregation of pollen beetles usually occurs first on a downwind field edge and then expands to the centre. A network of these or similar sensors at a crop or landscape scale could serve as the basis of a pest map. “A system that links the number of sensed insects immigrating into a field, the temperature, and the crop growth stage would better predict the risk of economic damage and provide an avenue for fully automated pest monitoring." Sencrop's Spraying windows feature can guide optimal spray timing to increase efficiency.

Fascinating Facts About Soybean Cyst Nematode By Pamela Smith, DTN Crops Technology Editor, Copyright DTN, LLC. Used by permission. When it comes to soybean adversaries, there is no threat bigger than soybean cyst nematode (SCN). The cheeky interloper hitchhikes into fields and steals yield — all while unscrupulously multiplying and without giving an aboveground sign of its freeloading ways. Those of us who follow agronomy topics write about SCN regularly. I can safely say that I have devoted more words to this pest than any other. Still, it remains stubbornly persistent and underestimated as a pest. Last fall DTN decided to double down on our coverage. We asked two farmers to soil sample a field for SCN and share their results as part of a project sponsored by The SCN Coalition, a public/private/checkoff partnership formed to encourage growers to actively manage this pest, which is estimated to cost farmers $1.5 billion annually. For the last few days, you’ve been reading about all about that and more about SCN as part of a series called: Stomp on SCN Yield Losses.… Continue reading https://lnkd.in/gcg97jCW