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Biog: Conor Colgan farms at Lowick Hall Farm, near Berwick on Tweed. The farm is 700-acres, and the enterprises are an arable rotation of wheat, barley, oilseed rape, oats and beans. He also has an 80-cow suckler beef herd. Six years ago Conor completed an MBA at the Royal Agricultural University; his thesis was on Lean Management, a technique used extensively by efficiency-critical sectors like the car industry. As part of his study, he undertook a complete Lean audit of every process on the farm. He says that this has made him exceptionally judicious about what system changes he makes and whether the introduction of a new practice will improve the value it delivers to his end markets and business bottom-line. “If it doesn’t, I won’t do it.”

Title: Innovations must be farm-relevant

The innovations that have most benefited my farm all centre on GPS technologies and soil mapping.

I’ve used SOYL to map my fields with the dual aim of generating a more consistent yield from my lower indices fields and adopting a precision approach to applying P to the seedbed and K during the growing season. The net result has been a recovery of soil indices and an improvement in crop yields.

This approach works well for the scale of my operation and because I have a lot of variation in indices. For farms where soils are similar, I suspect that the returns may not be so good.

I feel that the environment for fostering innovation in the arable sector was hit badly when we lost our national advisory service. When ADAS in its old guise went, we lost the prism to assess innovation for our industry.

R&D is now in the hands of the supply chain and its results are used to sell products or kit. There are too few independent trials from the like of AHDB to assess how these new commercial introductions really perform on farm.

So it is beholden on farmers themselves to prove whether a new technology or innovation will actually deliver the purported returns in their own farm situation.

In the future, I think it is really important for organisations like AHDB, TEAGASC and SRUC to analyse the impact of new developments on a range of different farms, soil types and scale of operation. This work would give us the clarity we need to truly compare market introductions, and not take the manufacturer’s word for the projected improvements we’ll gain.

I foresee that investment into genetics and access to GM technologies will become the essential innovation for the coming decades, particularly if issues like Septoria resistance threaten the viability of wheat production in the UK.

CropTec 2016:

Want to find out more about R&D and the latest innovation and technology? make sure to visit CropTec 2016.

To encourage knowledge exchange among the British farming community further, this year’s event is FREE for farmers and agronomists to attend. You MUST pre-register online to ensure you receive your free place.

General pre-registered admission: £12, all visitors will charged £15 on the gate on the day of the event.

Cope Seeds are a sales and marketing company of agricultural seeds and grain, built on thirty eight years of experience within the UK seeds industry. We process a wide range of species both conventionally and organically, which are marketed to wholesale and farmer customers throughout the UK.

One of the key parts of our business is the development of new varieties that bring benefits to both the UK farmer and end user. To date we have successfully commercialised a number of varieties including Atego, Rozmar and Vok Spring Oats, Sokrates and Magister Winter Wheat, Amaretto Spring Wheat and Armada Spring Barley and we are constantly trialling new material each year in both AHDB Recommended List trials and independent trials.

This autumn we are marketing a number of winter wheat varieties including Costello, RGT Illustrious and our exclusive variety, Nelson. Costello has the highest untreated yields of any variety from our portfolio and also boasts the best grain specification of any feed wheat. Costello is a short, stiff variety which suits both heavy and light soils. RGT Illustrious is a group 1 milling wheat with the highest untreated yields of any of the group 1’s. This variety has long straw but with excellent standing power and fantastic all round disease resistance. Our own variety Nelson is a German Milling E quality. Nelson is a dual purpose variety which is useful for feed and milling and is currently being grown on a buyback into Heygates at a group 1 premium. Heygates love the variety so much; they are offering it on the old Hereward tolerance contract. Nelson is a tall, stiff variety which keeps its green retention well. In 2 years of National Agrii trials, Nelson has the best resistance to Septoria, even beating the variety Graham.

Nelson winter wheat

Our seed portfolio features the winter barleys Cassia and Talisman. Cassia is a popular high yielding, 2 row feed accounting for nearly a 3rd of the winter barley market. It has good specific weights and resistance to lodging. Cassia performed consistently over the last 3 years and is resistant to BaYMV but susceptible to Rhyncosporium and Mildew. Talisman is an early to mature 2 row malting barley with very good disease resistance, especially Rhynchosporium and has a moderate straw length with good resistance to lodging.

Our new winter oat Eagle, is now in recommended list trials and is looking like an extremely promising variety, offering both yield and quality. One of our seed growers in Scotland has reported that the crop harvested on 22 August 2016 were coming off the combine at a moisture of 13.4% and an estimated yield of 10.6t/ha, demonstrating the varieties earliness and yield potential.

Eagle winter oats

Cope Seeds are offering the winter bean varieties Tundra and Wizard to growers this autumn. Tundra is a popular variety with a sowing window running from October to December. Tundra is suitable and adaptable to a wide range of soil types. Wizard can help spread the workload and are more suitable to heavy soils where establishment of spring beans can be a problem. However due to their relatively short straw compared to other winter beans growers should ensure that seed beds are level to avoid harvesting problems. Wizard takes approximately 98% of the winter bean market as it suits both growers and end users for domestic and export use.

Should you be interested in hearing more information on any of the listed varieties, or would like to hear about our wider variety portfolio, please contact us on 01529 421081 or visit us at Croptec stand 151.

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