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Know How / Crop management

Managing your crops through the growing season means careful nutrition and fertiliser use for maximum crop yields and keeping a watchful eye on pest, weeds and disease control.

Read expert advice, case studies, and tips on how to achieve the best yields and growth through best-practice crop management techniques, on all crops including wheat, barley, oilseed rape, potatoes, sugar beet and more niche crops.

Case studies

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MARKET OPPORTUNITIES

The farming practices helping create a better food system

Interest in farm practices that improve the nutrient content of food is at an all-time high as consumer focus switches to quality and resilient farming systems. Farmers Weekly spoke to…

CROP MANAGEMENT

Caithness farmer grows over 10t/ha spring oat crop

Growing crops on the far north coast of mainland Scotland can be a challenge, with heavy rain and gusty winds often limiting establishment. But this didn’t stop Caithness farmer John…

WHEAT

How a colour sorter investment helps secure milling premiums

The investment in a new colour sorter is helping the Wright family improve grain quality at their Leicestershire farm. With profit margins getting tighter, Wright’s Agriculture wanted to invest in…

CROP MANAGEMENT

How technology is delivering income and impact at scale

New technology has a central role in the day-to-day operations at Waldersey Farms, but only where it fits with the strategic direction of the 8,000ha business and improves data-led decisions.…

MAIZE

Biostimulants show potential for UK maize growers

Oxfordshire farmer Mark Viner has seen promising results from using biostimulants to support maize crops under challenging growing conditions. Smokedown Farm, near Faringdon, moved from dairying into a large-scale calf-rearing…

CROP MANAGEMENT

What one system means for everyday farm management at Velcourt

Farm management company Velcourt has successfully adopted a single digital system for managing field records, financials and precision inputs across 120 client farms and 46 managers. Since making the move,…

Practical advice

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DISEASE MANAGEMENT

Take-all in wheat: Advice for growers as weather shifts risk

Take-all is the most economically damaging root disease of consecutive wheats in UK arable systems, with yield losses in the range 10-20% common. Its impact can be much worse in…

DISEASE MANAGEMENT

Dry harvest and long storage raise potato disease risk

Low market movement of potatoes has left ware crops in store longer than usual, making store hygiene a key priority this summer. The dry harvest conditions of 2025 increased tuber…

NUTRITION AND FERTILISER

7 tips to make fertiliser go further this spring

While many farmers have already purchased fertiliser for this season, there will be some who haven’t been able to do that, whether it’s because of storage restrictions, cashflow or other…

DISEASE MANAGEMENT

Advice on effective late blight control in potatoes

Alternating fungicides to protect chemistry is key to maintaining effective late blight control in potatoes. Resistance management is a central component of any potato blight programme as aggressive and resistant…

CROP MANAGEMENT

Advice on key focus areas to ease pressure on arable margins

The outlook for arable businesses in the year ahead is one of tightening margins, rising costs and increasing uncertainty. Farm output is under significant strain, driven primarily by poor commodity…

LIVESTOCK

Advice on growing successful maize crops after a wet winter

Challenging wet weather, waterlogged soils and flooded sites mean growers must be flexible and develop a farm-specific strategy to get maize seed in the ground this year. Conditions are not…

Insights

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NUTRITION AND FERTILISER

How to unlock phosphate and improve herbicide efficacy

Up to 80% of applied phosphate can become locked up within days of application, significantly reducing the effectiveness of the fertiliser. “Research shows less than 10% of applied phosphate may…

WEED MANAGEMENT

Novel electric weeder works without chemicals or moving soil

A non-chemical systemic approach to weed control is now commercially available to UK farmers, following the launch of Garford’s electric weeder. The novel system is the result of a collaboration…

POTATOES

Elicitors offer fresh thinking amid blight control complexity

Late blight control in potatoes is becoming an increasingly complex balancing act, as growers face a shrinking fungicide armoury and an evolving, aggressive pathogen that leaves little margin for error.…

DISEASE MANAGEMENT

What farmers can do to minimise rising alternaria threat

A combination of factors is thought to be behind the rise in alternaria in the key potato-growing region, covering Shropshire, Cheshire and into Lancashire, over the past three to four…

DISEASE MANAGEMENT

Fungicide advice as wheat disease pressure remains high

Disease pressure is high in winter wheat crops despite a dry April, and growers are being urged to protect the flag leaf at the critical T2 spray timing, especially as…

SOILS

3 technologies to measure soil health and function

While traditional soil testing has focused on chemistry, a growing range of tools are now available to help farmers assess the biological and structural function of soils. Soil health relies…

CROP MANAGEMENT

How tech approach lifted ‘field of the future’ margins 26%

A change in approach at Revesby Estate in Lincolnshire saw the “field of the future” deliver a 26% higher gross margin than the farm standard at harvest 2025, in a…

CROP MANAGEMENT

Biostimulant and bioherbicide tech targets yield gains

A biostimulant that can boost yields by up to 20% and a bioherbicide with insulin-like properties that fools plants into shutting down are two high-tech solutions being developed for arable…

DISEASE MANAGEMENT

Key benefits of new maize fungicide for growers

Maize growers have a new-generation azole fungicide option for managing foliar disease at the critical stem extension to flowering stage. While mefentrifluconazole is already familiar to cereal growers, the active…

POTATOES

How McCain is using a demo farm to reach its regen targets

A farm in Yorkshire is the home of the third global “Farm of the Future” launched by prepared potato product manufacturer McCain, following others in Canada and South Africa. The…

DISEASE MANAGEMENT

Yellow rust wheat threat mounts ahead of T1 fungicide sprays

Winter wheat growers face a heightened challenge of controlling septoria and yellow rust in their crops this season, with both diseases clearly visible in early spring. Farmers Weekly visited North…

ARABLE

Arable farm management software: The options and prices

For years, farm management software has been limited mostly to three options, with Gatekeeper and Greenlight Grower Management (GLGM) – also known colloquially as Muddy Boots – by far the…

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