Biog:    Russ farms 995ha, spread over 17 miles and five units, between Cambs and Beds. He grows predominantly first wheats (mostly for seed) with winter barley, oilseed rape, spring beans and spring barley. He describes himself as not form a farming family, but as having loved everything about farming since a very young age, starting with a harvest job on a local farm when he was 13.  He graduated from Writtle College with a BSc in Agriculture and then took on a trainee manager’s position with Albanwise Farming in Norfolk.  Russ is BASIS and FACTS qualified and is a partner in his wife’s family farming business which he jointly manages along with John Sheard Farms.  His recent Nuffield Farming scholarship, sponsored by AHDB, investigated how the best no-till practitioners across the world manage to make the system work in both the wettest and driest of conditions which took him to Australia, New Zealand, the Czech Republic, USA, Brazil and Argentina. He is also an AHDB Monitor Farm.  

Title:  Harvest 2016 and industry innovation

It’s been an easy harvest, and whilst some performances have been down. We’ve combined 5,000+ tonnes of grain and not had to dry any of it, which means it’s been a welcome, cheap harvest.

Our break-even for wheat is £117/t; at market prices of £120-130/t, there’s a bit of margin; at the current November futures price of £116/t, there is none. Added to this, milling wheat supply is strong, because of the large areas of Skyfall and the spec is good. Millers know this and it has dented premiums.

In the immediate future, prices need to rise and the industry needs to continue to innovate.

Farmers talk to each other and it fuels our hunger to learn and to get more from the equipment we are using. In the UK we are living in an innovative environment and seeing lots of farmers trying new ideas without the help of a guide book. We’re seeing this particularly in direct drilling and the use of cover crops.

The innovation that has most benefited my farming operation is the introduction of variable seed rates. My catalyst was the variation I saw in one field drilled at a uniform seed rate, where the soils were heavier, the plant count was too low resulting in a 1.75t/ha yield penalty.

Since we’ve introduced Soilquest variable rate scanning and adapted seed rates to field zones, our yields are higher and more consistent.

However, success can sometimes be hard won. I get frustrated that different implements cannot talk to one another; it is always the fault of the other manufacturer!

Crop varietal development is another innovation worthy of mention. We’ve seen some remarkable yield jumps and improvements in disease packages, particularly in oilseed rape. Plus, traits like pod shatter resistance have delivered valuable risk mitigation, particularly when bad weather hits nearly ripe crops.

R&D is vital for our future and here, large organisations cannot be as nimble as farmers, nor is it easy for them to take the trial and error approach possible on-farm; by the time their projects are planned and budgets agreed, the findings are two years out of date.

Work conducted by organisations like AHDB as very valuable. However, we could learn a lot from Brazil’s agricultural research body, Embrapa, where there is no disconnect between them and farmers; they are right on the pulse of what research is valuable and how its communicated.

Looking to the future, the primary focus for advancing innovation needs to be in the understanding and management of soil health. A lot of brilliant soil scientists have recently retired and it’s a huge loss because we need to build a deeper understanding about our soils.

UK farmers and merchants now have a new source of competitive agricultural varieties that challenges the status quo of established suppliers. Elsoms Seeds and Saaten Union have an impressive range of AHDB recommended and candidate cereals and oilseeds varieties, combined with a strong position in the burgeoning energy crop sector, a market leading hybrid cereals development programme, and a growing vining pea business.

 Over recent years, farmers have seen a steady reduction in the number of significant suppliers of new products and varieties to the market. Elsoms have reversed this trend by working with similarly innovative, independent, specialist and technically strong businesses across Europe to build a portfolio of impressive arable varieties that is now attracting strong interest from across the industry.

“The strength of the Elsoms programme is underlined by our wide range of wheat varieties that are available to farmers in 2017” said Adrian Hayler, Head of Elsoms Agricultural Division.  “This currently includes four AHDB candidate wheats, Bennington, Moulton, Freiston and Dunston, early maturing & high yielding AHDB recommended variety Belgrade, specialist alternative milling wheat Lennox as well as hybrid wheats Hybery and Hylux.”

 “The launch of Trinity oilseed rape three years ago heralded the resurgence of our agricultural business,” commented Mark Nightingale, Elsoms Oilseed Rape Breeder. “This year we have built on this success with Elgar, newly recommended by AHDB, which has taken a major share of winter oilseed rape whilst AHDB candidate Skye has made a good start, being marketed exclusively by United Oilseeds”.

The Elsoms portfolio now encompasses oats, barley, spring oats and spring malting barley. AHBD candidate varieties of spring oats and spring malting barley were showcased at Cereals this year and performed well in this year’s official trials. 

“Acorn spring barley demonstrated impressive malting potential combined with excellent disease resistance, whilst Chanson is a new null lox variety that provides growers with a real leap forward in terms of yield,” said Elsoms Seed Sales Specialist, George Goodwin. “Both oat varieties, Harmony and Yukon look promising and have attracted promising interest from merchants.”

The rapid growth of the energy crop sector over the last three years has driven one of the biggest changes in arable cropping since the expansion of the oilseed rape market in in the 1990’s. Elsoms energy crop team of Heather Oldfield and Jonathan Baxendale, in combination with Saaten Union’s Bio Energy Division led by Dr Joachim Moeser, have worked closely with energy companies, merchants, famers, advisors and contractors to help develop the most efficient way of producing crops for energy production. Whilst maize remains the foundation of most energy crop programmes, many farmers are realising the considerable benefits that can be achieved by a sophisticated and integrated rotation that includes hybrid rye, triticale, energy beet and catch and cover crops as well as maize.  

Heather Oldfield, Energy and Forage Crops Manager, Elsoms, commented “Our hybrid rye varieties such as SU Performer and SU Drive continue to take a major share of this growing market and we have developed an exciting maize portfolio to combine with our established triticale varieties to provide farmers with an extensive range of energy crop options.”

Adrian Hayley, Head of the Agricultural Division, Elsoms, added “We have been delighted by the support we have received from across the agricultural sector over the last few years as our arable business has grown and we are proud that we can offer UK farmers a real alternative choice of a wide range of competitive varieties,”.

To find out more about the Elsoms rapidly expanding range of agricultural seed and the success of our varieties in 2016 trials, please visit our enthusiastic crop management teams on stand 138 at CropTec 2016 on 29–30 November at the East of England Showground, Peterborough.