Crops articles from April 2005

Crops archives from April 2005

Tipping the scales back.(VIEWPOINT)
April 9, 2005... SO THE OFT report into the Supermarket Code was a whitewash. Should anyone be surprised? There can only be a handful of farmer-suppliers who ever had much faith in the code; fewer still brave enough to challenge it and risk the wrath of a...

Running out of time.(VIEWPOINT)
April 9, 2005... ALL IS not well with the Rural Land Register. There are now too many farmers complaining they do not have their digital maps, and others that their pre-populated SP5 forms do not tally with the approved mapping information, for these to be...

Getting the public back on side is the idea behind the NFU's Making Green Ground campaign launched in the past fortnight.(VIEWPOINT)
April 9, 2005... Getting the public back on side is the idea behind the NFU's Making Green Ground campaign launched in the past fortnight. It's an extremely important initiative which all in the industry should embrace. It's supported by encouraging research...

Appointments have been made to the new gangmasters' watchdog, the Gangmasters Licensing Authority.(VIEWPOINT)
April 9, 2005... Appointments have been made to the new gangmasters' watchdog, the Gangmasters Licensing Authority. The GLA will develop a compulsory licensing scheme by 2006 for anyone operating as a gangmaster. Sourcing temporary harvest farm labour is...

Well done NFU, CLA and others for persuading DEFRA to ease the five-day restriction on non-agricultural activities on single payment scheme land during the 10-month period.(VIEWPOINT)
April 9, 2005... Well done NFU, CLA and others for persuading DEFRA to ease the five-day restriction on non-agricultural activities on single payment scheme land during the 10-month period. Activities such as walking, bird spotting, game shooting, and school...

Racing to be a biofuels leader: agriculture should be part of the solution to global warming rather than part of the problem, Marie Skinner says.(FARMERFORUM)
April 9, 2005... THE release of green house gases (GHG) into the atmosphere from the use of transport is increasing and shows no signs of being controlled. Schemes to encourage people to leave their cars at home and walk or use public transport have minimal...

Wrestling with abstraction: Norfolk farmer Tim Jolly says growers who irrigate must become involved in the politics and science of water abstraction.(FARMERFORUM)
April 9, 2005... IN 2003, the Water Act came into force, and over the next few years, the regulations it delivers will change the nature of abstraction licences and the ability of farmers to continue to irrigate. The Act was born out of the droughts in the...

Arnaud Vecten: farming in France.(WORLDFARMING)
April 9, 2005... MARCH in Picardy included deepest winter with snow showers and frosts down to -15C but now temperatures rising to 20C--all within three weeks. I've become something of an expert on local climate having been out on the tractor drilling...

Specific weight approach flawed: more than a quarter of group 4 wheats fell below minimum specific weight targets last harvest. But were price cuts justified? Sarah Henly reports.(WHEAT)
April 9, 2005... DON'T believe anyone who says your wheat offers poor feed quality just because it has a low specific weight. Not even this season. That is the bold message from researcher Peter Kettlewell of Harper Adams University College. Low specific...

What value strobilurins? What, where, when, why and how should strobilurins be used this season? Liz Robinson finds out.(T1 SPRAYS)
April 9, 2005... THE FREQUENCY of the strobilurin resistance gene, G143A, in Septoria tritici populations at the end of 2004 was nearly 95% in the UK, according to Syngenta's countywide monitoring. But despite that, strobilurins are, according to each of...

Light land response: wondering where to position your strobilurin this season? Liz Robinson seeks some answers for light land growers.(T1 SPRAYS)
April 9, 2005... RAISING winter wheat yields on light land is a challenge. But it's one that distributor Agrovista is determined to succeed at. The company's approach in trials is to apply a mobile phosphate product, P-Kursor, to the crop to promote early...

The race is on ... crops and diseases both respond to temperature. Liz Robinson finds out how this information can help growers.(T1 SPRAYS)
April 9, 2005... WHEN a crop of wheat starts stem extension it enters into a race with septoria. The aim of the plant is to produce leaves. And the aim of the disease is to infect those leaves by cycling as quickly as possible. The common factor that drives...

Focus back on triazoles.(T1 SPRAYS)
April 9, 2005... Strobilurins can no longer be used as front-line products in the UK and Ireland following the extensive and fast-paced spread of resistance. That's according to John Lucas, head of the plant pathogen interaction division at Rothamsted Research....

Managing those ELS arable options: in this second ELS article, Julian Gairdner talks to farm manager Phil Jarvis, and adviser, Matthew Ward, to find out how the Game Conservancy's project at Loddington in Leicestershire is managing six ELS-style options.(ENTRY LEVEL STEWARDSHIP)
April 9, 2005... Beetle banks "ESTABLISH them with a reversible plough ploughing the two sides back into each other," says Mr Ward. Hand-sowing the grass seed mix is easiest and cheapest, Mr Jarvis adds. The grass mix should be based around...

Looking at the ELS options.(FARMDIARY)
April 9, 2005... THE drip feed of information surrounding the new Entry Level Scheme has turned into a flood in the past few weeks and we now have a far clearer picture of what will be required of us to achieve the necessary 30 points/ha. Our biggest...

Training for changing times.(FARMDIARY)
April 9, 2005... THERE'S been some action on the land enabling seed drills to press on with the necessary late-drilled wheat and in some instances spring beans. As I write, however, we have had 25mm rain bringing all operations to an abrupt halt. We have...

To be precise.(NUTRITION)
April 9, 2005... AS the winner of last year's Silver Lapwing award, Chris Dowse knows a thing or two about combining business sense with care for the environment. Managing 2,980ha (2,630 arable) on behalf of Sir Richard Sutton's Settled Estates in...

Justin McDonald's diary.
April 9, 2005... Wednesday What farmer, given the opportunity, has ever been able to resist prying into his neighbour's business? So it was that I rushed to buy my copy of the Guardian (not my usual daily paper) to discover all this...

Multiple tasks: no problem; When is a telehandler not just a telehandler? Peter Hill finds out.(MACHINERY)
April 9, 2005... WITH only a few exceptions, farmers have always been reluctant to adopt multi-use machinery, even if it promises better use of their money invested. In the 1970s Farmhand pushed the idea of a unit that could power a forage harvester one...

If it's traditional you are after ...(MACHINERY)
April 9, 2005... INNOVATION aplenty characterises the traditional telescopic handler market. The compact model in JCB's Loadall telehandler line-up, for example, is evolving into a range in its own right, with the arrival of two new models. With an...

Quicke Dimension.(MACHINERY)
April 9, 2005... IT CAN'T be easy giving something as fundamentally functional as a tractor loader a bit of style. But the design engineers at Alo, the Swedish manufacturer of Quicke loaders, have managed it. You'd be hard pressed to find a sleeker tractor...

Rough ride on the road: new rules for mobile workers will make life tougher for hauliers and farmers alike, as Suzie Horne discovers.(BUSINESS)
April 9, 2005... HAULAGE firms will see operating costs rise by 5.6% a year between 2005 and 2010 and will need an extra 60,600 drivers to cope with the reduction in working hours imposed by the EU's Working Time Directive for mobile workers. "These...

New pre-em for autumn.(LASTWORD)
April 9, 2005... DOES CROP safety worry you when it comes to pre-emergence herbicide treatments? If so, a new product from Syngenta might just help get round the problems of crop damage in the autumn. Pending approval, prosulfocarb will be available this...

BASF invests in seed treatment.(LASTWORD)
April 9, 2005... THE SEED treatment market doubled in the past 10 years and it is predicted to double again by 2016, which is why BASF, having acquired a number of actives from Aventis before its merger with Bayer, has jumped on the bandwagon and invested in a...

OSR helper.(LASTWORD)
April 9, 2005... WANT to improve pod and seed retention and reduce lodging in oilseed rape? Then the advice from BASF is to have a look at crops to decide whether a treatment of Caramba for growth regulation at the stem extension stage is needed. Caramba...

Sclerotinia armoury.(LASTWORD)
April 9, 2005... OILSEED rape growers could soon have another weapon to use against the soil-borne disease, sclerotinia. The product, available in other countries as Contans WG, consists of the natural soil fungus Coniothyrium minitans and is developed by...

Water matters--so keep it clean: growers have used herbicides like mecoprop-p for decades. But stop and think before you spray is the advice from the Voluntary Initiative.
April 9, 2005... MECOPROP-P and other phenoxy herbicides remain cost effective. But like all pesticides, they must be applied carefully, within label recommendations, and with reference to the advice offered through the Voluntary Initiative. Just one...

Opportunity knocks ...(OILSEEDS)
April 9, 2005... IT'S THE FIRST season of the single payment scheme, and already growers are starting to think about market opportunity. And if ever there was a sector that's responding to the challenge, then oilseeds, and in particular oilseed rape, is it....

Cutting down the fat content: health fears about trans fats could prompt a switch to new varieties of oilseed rapes, as Gilly Johnson reports.(OILSEEDS)
April 9, 2005... WANT TO know how the rape market might shape up over the next few years? Then wise up on the latest nutritional scare in the USA, because what's happening now over there, could affect the demand for rape oil here before the end of next...

Return to the plough: many growers have moved from the plough to min till for establishing oilseed rape. But for one Cambridgeshire grower the switch has been the other way. Louise Impey reports.(OILSEEDS)
April 9, 2005... GROWERS NEED a well-established crop, with a good rooting system and optimum plant numbers to be able to influence yields, says Bob Mills of Banks Cargill. And that means creating a seedbed with enough moisture in the fortnight or so available...

There's a future in finola: gross margin opportunity growing hemp as oilseed.(OILSEEDS)
April 9, 2005... WANT to earn a gross margin of over [pounds sterling]350/ha without the single farm payment? Then try growing finola hemp for seed processing. A deal with two end users--Boots and an undisclosed food ingredients company--means the oil...

One-stop shop for OSR.(OILSEEDS)
April 9, 2005... UK growers are set to benefit from a Defra-funded project, which ultimately aims to increase the sustainability of oilseed rape. The Oilseed Rape Genetic Improvement Network (OREGIN), which was set up last year, aims to exploit the...

Liquified oilseed rape for power.(OILSEEDS)
April 9, 2005... GROWERS can earn a guaranteed [pounds sterling]150 a tonne for oilseed rape drilled this autumn, thanks to a contract offered by Driffield-based Springdale Crop Synergies. By liquidising the rape seed and burning it in redundant coal pit...

GM setback.(OILSEEDS)
April 9, 2005... GM herbicide-tolerant oilseed rape has taken a serious knock following the findings in the recent Government-commissioned report forming part of the Farm Scale Evaluations looking into the effects on weed and invertebrate abundance. The report...

Biodiesel motors forth: biodiesel from home-grown oilseed rape is a step closer with the construction of two large plants in the north east. Suzie Horne reports.(OILSEEDS)
April 9, 2005... PRODUCTION of UK biodiesel from rape oil will begin on Teesside in July. At full capacity, Biofuels Corporation's [pounds sterling]21m plant will produce 250,000t of biodiesel a year. The company expects to use 25% rape oil and 75% palm oil,...

Breaking through again: in an exclusive visit to Monsanto's breeding station in France, Julian Gairdner discovers why hybrid rape is set to make a come-back, and what other areas breeders are looking to exploit.(OILSEEDS)
April 9, 2005... ANYONE INVOLVED with hybrid oilseed rape will understand the importance of the male restorer plant to deliver the vigour and desired yield potential hybrid technologists have long promised growers. But with a declining market share in the...

Potential in market for healthier oils.(OILSEEDS)
April 9, 2005... HYBRID VARIETIES might be about to take the oilseed rape plaudits, but there are other areas Monsanto believes offer market potential to growers. "We're focusing on breeding new oil profiles," Dr Despeghel says. "All the medical community...

Agronomic step change.(OILSEEDS)
April 9, 2005... GROWERS HAVE much to look forward to from hybrid rape if Monsanto's new variety, Excalibur, is anything to go by. The company believes it is a "step-change" variety combining for the first time, high yields with sound agronomics. "It's...

Flowering fungicides prove their worth: sclerotinia sprays offer more than just disease control, say the manufacturers. Gilly Johnson weighs up what's on offer.(OILSEEDS)
April 9, 2005... IF MONEY were no object, then no question about it, sprayers would be going through the crop as soon as it turned yellow to defend against sclerotinia and alternaria, using one of the new fungicides. Sadly, life's not that simple. The...

Disease check.(VIEWPOINT)
April 23, 2005... Disease check: Carl Mann inspects Robigus winter wheat before applying 200ha worth of Stabilan (1.7 litres/ha) and Bravo (0.7 litres/ha), plus liquid manganese sulphate at David Baker Farms, near Bungay, Norfolk. Crops look well, according to...

Choices: they're Terry's not mine.(VIEWPOINT)
April 23, 2005... TWENTY-TWO billion pounds. It's a lot of money in anyone's book, and the fact that one in every three pounds we spend on groceries and "everyday products" clinks its way through a Tesco till is a stark reminder of the supremacy of the...

GM prejudice.(VIEWPOINT)
April 23, 2005... IT'S been a decade since the first commercial GM crops were planted. Ten years on, Europe stands isolated in its anti-GM stance, while the rest of the world, the Americas and the Far East in particular, surges ahead with the technology....

A group of oilseed rape growers in France.(VIEWPOINT)
April 23, 2005... A group of oilseed rape growers in France will benefit this season from a pilot crop insurance scheme organised by the French oilseeds marketing authority (FOP) and the cooperative agricultural insurance sector, to protect growers from adverse...

Reports from Germany.(VIEWPOINT)
April 23, 2005... Reports from Germany are fizzing with the news that cola (yes the soft drink) is proving effective as an environmentally friendly crop protection tool in India. There is nothing even mildly insecticidal in the popular drink, but when greatly...

European governments.(VIEWPOINT)
April 23, 2005... European governments must honour the financial ceiling agreed for the CAP in 2002, the NFU's vice-president Meurig Raymond told MEP's recently. The NFU is concerned by proposals from some member states--Germany, France, Austria, Netherlands,...

Looking after the entitlement: preserving the single payment must be farm activity number one, says Stephen Carr.(FARMERFORUM)
April 23, 2005... AT THIS time of year, with several young children, I get a variety of upbeat letters from headmasters and headmistresses looking forward to the Summer Term. One in particular caught my attention this week. It read: 'In today's society it...

Making measurement count: who measures farming's environmental performance? Guy Smith suggests farmers need to become more involved.(FARMERFORUM)
April 23, 2005... ONE OF my first jobs on the farm was loading the grain lorries at harvest time. The rest of the farm staff were busy out in the fields so the college boy was given this task. The job didn't need much training but there was one strict...

Harald Isermeyer: farming in Germany.(WORLDFARMING)
April 23, 2005... A SPLENDID period of weather in March meant all spring-sown crops--barley, protein peas and sugar beet--were in the ground by the end of the month, drilled under very good conditions. The autumn crops have come through the winter well and...

Insect anguish: quality peas are paramount for growers aiming for both domestic and export markets. Don't let insects ruin it all. Liz Robinson reports.(PEAS)
April 23, 2005... PEA APHID and pea moth could seriously jeopardise combining pea yields and quality if left unchecked. And with growers chasing premium markets, being aware of what and when to spray is increasingly important. Trade estimates have put the...

Preventative action: Liz Robinson finds out which fungicides will feature this year.(PEAS)
April 23, 2005... PLANNING a fungicide strategy for peas is not easy, simply because of the weather. Routine prophylactic sprays do not produce responses year on year, yet in wet seasons good fungicide responses are seen. And with the exception of powdery...

Get it right.(Advertisement)
April 23, 2005... With the crops rapidly moving towards flag leaf emergence, growers are reminded to monitor crops regularly and prioritise their T2 applications to match the risk. GET IT RIGHT... T2 FUNGICIDES Septoria tritici and rusts are the main...

Making the switch: switching from vining to combining peas has proved a sound move for one Norfolk grower. Liz Robinson reports.(PEAS)
April 23, 2005... RELIABLE quality, excellent premiums, no nitrogen requirement and early entry for winter cereals should sound tempting. And for grower Benjamin Long this is exactly what he is achieving since switching from vining peas to Kabuki combining peas...

Common sensor measures: it's more precise and probably more cost-effective than eyeballing. So when will automated crop monitoring be available? asks Sarah Henly.(RESEARCH)
April 23, 2005... WALKING fields to monitor crops is a time consumingjob. Something you could do without at this busy time of the season. So what better than a tractor-mounted gismo that can assess crop canopy condition to help you pinpoint precisely when to...

Light fading on European GM crops: Europe's farmers have been dealt a hammer blow by the anti GM lobby and Government, as biotech expert, Paul Rylott, tells Julian Gairdner.(GENETIC MODIFICATION)(Cover Story)
April 23, 2005... BACK IN 1996, the first commercial genetically modified crops were being planted in the US. The result of years of scientific research by the major biotech companies, there was much excitement and expectation. The sun was rising on a new era of...

Brome on the march: is brome rearing its ugly head in your wheat crops this year? Louise Impey reports.(GRASSWEEDS)
April 23, 2005... CONTINUOUS wheat doesn't offer many solutions for severe grass weed infestation control as grower Frank Sapsed knows only too well. Mr Sapsed, who contract farms 100ha of continuous wheat in Hertfordshire, has faced a doubling in herbicide...

Emerging from the paperwork.(FARMDIARY)
April 23, 2005... IN THE middle of March I burst out from under a pile of papers and DEFRA dictats, desperate to escape from SPS, ELS, HLS, RDS, GBH and a thousand other threatening acronyms. With relief, I climbed onto a tractor and we went to drill sugar beet...

New mildewicide for cereals.(AGRONOMYUPDATE)
April 23, 2005... A NEW mildewicide from Certis is excpected to recieve approval from PSD next week, just in time to catch the spring cereal market. Containing 50g/litre cyflufenamid, an amine-group fungicide, the product has preventative and curative...

Heaps of hemp potential: hemp could become a mainstream spring crop if the potential is realised. Julian Gairdner talks to Springdale's Clifford Spencer about the prospects and opportunity for growers.(NICHE CROPS)
April 23, 2005... ANYONE who's grown hemp in the past decade or so has either loved it or loathed it. Loved it because of its low management requirement and small demand on inputs. Loathed it because of the variable yields, and difficulties with harvest, storage...

Here's a headturner ... it may carry the same name but Hardi's latest Commander trailed sprayer is pretty much all-new, with some innovative features, as Peter Hill reports.(MACHINERY)
April 23, 2005... A SLEEK wedge shape that creates an eye-catching appearance heralds some neat engineering developments beneath the all-enveloping bodywork of the Hardi Commander 3200 and 4400 trailed sprayers. The newcomers have all pipe-work and other...

Feature-full alternative.(MACHINERY)
April 23, 2005... GROWERS looking for high outputs and sophisticated features in a trailed sprayer have another option in Knight's 'EUA' model. Tank capacity is 3,800 litres and booms up to 36m wide. Axle suspension, axle steering and Knight's Laser...

Good match for self-propelleds: high-specification trailed sprayers are giving self-propelled machines a run for their money, writes Peter Hill.(MACHINERY)
April 23, 2005... WITH well-behaved big booms, large capacity tanks and control systems that give fingertip operation of all major functions, a high specification trailed sprayer can match the output of a self-propelled machine while making use of a power unit...

Larrington potato fall breaker.(MACHINERY)
April 23, 2005... ANYTHING that will eat into the bruising losses calculated by the British Potato Council to cost growers [pounds sterling]26m a year will be welcomed with open arms. Which may well be the reaction that greets the Guardian Elevator CushionLock...

Frontier to build certainty: another grain merchant merger hit the headlines earlier this month when the new venture started trading. Suzie Horne reports.(BUSINESS)
April 23, 2005... CERTAINTY will be one of the main benefits to growers from the formation of Frontier, the joint venture between Banks Cargill Agriculture and Allied Grain, says managing director Mark Aitchison. The new business, with a turnover of [pounds...

New nozzle to the rescue.(LASTWORD)
April 23, 2005... SMALL, upright, narrow-leaved grass weeds are a difficult spray target. Sprays International has developed a new nozzle tip to improve herbicide coverage, says the firm's Brain Workman. The Tilt-30 is a 110 flat fan nozzle that inclines...

Bird numbers stabilise.(LASTWORD)
April 23, 2005... THE long-term decline in farmland birds has stabilised, according to figures published by DEFRA. And for a number of species, such as the greenfinch and stockdove, the decline has reversed. Although numbers remain historically low, they...

Keep mildew at bay.(LASTWORD)
April 23, 2005... BARLEY growers should not for get the importance of a specific mildewicide in their fungicide strategies, according to Dow Agrosciences. "Disease control programmes based on prothioconazole with a strobilurin fungicide may be weak on...

Eyespot threat.(LASTWORD)
April 23, 2005... NATIONWIDE crop testing revealed more than nine out of 10 crops sampled up to the beginning of April were found to have eyespot, with 86% having the aggressive R strain of the disease, and this figure is up on last year, says Syngenta's Rod...

Interactive planning.(LASTWORD)
April 23, 2005... AN INTERACTIVE website tool to help farmers and advisers check information on fungicide product dose response curves has been developed by HGCA. The site allows users to compare product performance against all the major foliar diseases at...

SPS questions answered.(LASTWORD)
April 23, 2005... AN INTERACTIVE database relating to questions and answers about the Single Payment Scheme has been launched by Aubourn, the agribusiness division of Savills. The database covers all aspects of the SPS in an Excel format. "The need for a...

2005 wheat guide.(BRIEFS)
April 23, 2005... NABIM, the representative organisation for the UK flour milling industry, has produced its new wheat guide for 2005. It gives a clearer indication of the flour milling industry's opinion on different varieties, giving growers a far more useful...

New formulation.(BRIEFS)
April 23, 2005... BASF is launching a new formulation of Opus this season, which it says overcomes the problems of mixing with Starane (fluroxypyr). Whereas the old formulation only permitted a mix with a half rate of each product, the new improved formulation...

Sclerotinia service.(BRIEFS)
April 23, 2005... THE sclerotinia germination monitoring service is now up and running on BASF's agricentre website. Log on to www.agricentre.co.uk to track sclerotinia germination in your area. The sites for 2005 are ADAS centres Boxworth, High Mowthorpe,...

Maintaining the margin.(PREMIUM POTATOES)
April 23, 2005... ARE you as good a grower as you can be? It's question many growers must be asking themselves. But how many know how to answer it? It's not always easy to be precise. Many businesses still do not cost out enterprises in sufficient...

Seven steps to haven: the Ring Rot Safe Haven Accreditation Scheme consists of seven fundamental measures, but growers must also comply with existing legislation and some additional best practice requirements, as Louise Impey discovers.(PREMIUM POTATOES)
April 23, 2005... FOR MOST seed producers, achieving safe haven accreditation will be straightforward, believes the British Potato Council's lain Dykes. "It's a simple scheme and out of the seven specific safe haven measures, five are to do with hygiene," he...

Weighing up the cost of compaction: compaction could be costing you dear, as Gilly Johnson discovers.(PREMIUM POTATOES)
April 23, 2005... MOST growers know that soil compaction will reduce potato yield and quality. But what they may not appreciate is that allowing their land to become compacted could also breach the new cross-compliance rules (see panel). But if you think...

Facing up to the thresholds: new potato protocols expect growers to justify pesticide treatments. Gilly Johnson finds out what steps can be followed.(PREMIUM POTATOES)
April 23, 2005... UNDER the new Assured Produce standards for 2005, potato growers are being "strongly recommended" to adopt thresholds or other recognised prediction systems, to avoid application of routine preventative pesticide applications. It's not...

Forearmed on blight: temperature and relative humidity have driven blight forecasting for 50 years. Liz Robinson finds out if things have changed.(PREMIUM POTATOES)
April 23, 2005... SOPHISTICATED blight forecasting models are few and far between in the UK despite the trend towards reduced and targeted use of pesticides. In other European countries, decision support systems are used to predict risk periods. Denmark and...

New angle on a perennial pest: alternatives to prophylactic slug control in potatoes are being explored. Gilly Johnson reports.(PREMIUM POTATOES)
April 23, 2005... THESE days, supermarket buyers will not tolerate even a few tell-tale holes in potato tubers. But the demand for slug-susceptible varieties such as Maris Piper remains high, so the pressure is on. Slug control must be made to work. But...

Bringing waste in to line: regulations which bring agricultural waste under the same controls as other industry sectors are due to come into force later this year. Louise Impey reports.(PREMIUM POTATOES)
April 23, 2005... ON-FARM potato dumps are the main concern with the forthcoming agricultural waste legislation, Mark Prentice of the BPC believes, although much will depend on the final definition of waste. "If crop out-grades are classed as waste, then...

A forgotten disease: there's a disease lurking in potato crops. Louise Impey finds out more.(PREMIUM POTATOES)
April 23, 2005... IT MAY not hit the headlines as much as blight and rhizoctonia, but verticillium is as much of a problem for some potato growers as its more fashionable counterparts. ADAS pathologist Peter Gladders calls it the forgotten disease and...

Marking the route to profit: benchmarking the 2003 crop helped make the decision to stay in potatoes for a further five years on one Yorkshire unit. Suzie Horne reports.(PREMIUM POTATOES)
April 23, 2005... TOM FEATHERBY farms in partnership with his brother Richard, growing 38ha of processing potatoes for crisping as part of a 295ha all-arable operation at Park Farm, Harswell near Market Weighton. While it can be time consuming to get all the...