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Know How / Sugar beet / Land preparation

With soil health moving up the agenda, cultivations for the sugar beet crop are under scrutiny and need to be considered on a field-by-field basis.

See how to prevent compaction, minimise soil erosion, and if multiple passes of lighter machinery can be replaced by one pass of heavier equipment without detriment.

Case studies

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MARKET OPPORTUNITIES

Why a Scottish estate harvests crops every month of the year

Crops are harvested 12 months of the year at Stracathro Estate on the east coast of Scotland to fuel a 2MW anaerobic digestion plant, which requires the equivalent feedstock of…

REGENERATIVE AGRICULTURE

Farm cuts diesel costs and improves yields in move to regen

Getting the basics right and changing systems slowly to get soil into the right place for direct drilling has been a successful strategy for Revesby Estate’s farm manager Peter Cartwright.…

COVER CROPS

4 growers' methods of effective cover crop destruction

Cover crops are becoming a mainstream option for growers, but their effective removal is critical to get good spring crop establishment. Farmers Weekly speaks to four growers from across the…

ARABLE

How on-farm interventions keep soil and water in place

A whole-farm approach to water management has seen a Norfolk estate introduce measures that have returned 45m litres of water to the environment. Working with the Norfolk Rivers Trust as…

SOILS

5 ways a Lincs estate is improving its soil management

Balancing good soil management and health with the short-term interests of a large-scale commercial farming business is difficult to manage. However, one Lincolnshire estate has been implementing a long-term plan…

SOILS

How to identify and encourage worms to improve soils

Earthworms are a key measure of soil health, as they can mobilise locked-up minerals, help drainage and spread organic matter to improve soil structure. Therefore, we travelled to one of…

Practical advice

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COVER CROPS

Terminating cover crops - how to get it right

Timing is essential when terminating cover crops, go too soon and limit the amount of biomass accumulation and rooting, whereas leaving it too late on heavy land can lead to…

SOILS

The Soil Health Scorecard: What it is and how to use it

A new way to quantify soil health allows farmers to measure any improvements over time, as well as identify potential problems that could be holding yields back. Until now there…

SOILS

How to raise headland yields by cutting soil compaction risk

Yields on field headlands are typically 10% lower than the rest of the field, which is why farmers will benefit from measures that minimise the impact of increased traffic on…

SOILS

How growers can improve soil management decisions

A way of benchmarking soil health plus a tool aimed at helping farmers tackle soil compaction were among the highlights at Farmers Weekly’s Soils in Practice 2018 event. We take…

SOILS

7 steps to successful subsoiling

Subsoiling can be effective technique to solve soil compaction problems. However, if done at the wrong time or incorrect depth, it can cause more problems than it solves. Soil compaction…

SOILS

Tips on assessing the health of your soil

A healthy soil is described as a living system that helps to maintain and enhance the natural environment, which in turn makes for more productive crops. That’s a shortened version…

Insights

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SOILS

How the UK's first soil carbon mapping service works

The UK’s first carbon mapping service, capable of providing an accurate baseline measure of soil carbon levels, is now available to farmers. The technology, known as Terramap Carbon, will gauge…

SOILS

Fermenting organic matter better for soil than composting

Fermenting organic matter in a similar way to ensiling grass, rather than composting waste, can lead to greater improvements in soil health while at the same time helping farmers to…

SOILS

Expert advice on managing soils better

Soil health has risen to the top of the agenda for the agricultural industry over recent years. At the recent Farmers Weekly Soils in Practice event on a Lincolnshire farm,…

ARABLE

How 'conservation agriculture' can improve soil health

Adopting the fundamental principles of “conservation agriculture” has huge potential for nursing depleted arable soils back to health and correct implementation is key to its success. Conservation agriculture is defined…

SOILS

Arable Horizons: How science and tech could save our soils

Our soils are in trouble. That has been the clear and much-publicised message from the scientific community in recent years. But despite the gloomy headlines, Wilfred Otten of the Cranfield…

ARABLE

Building a case for no-till crop establishment

Whether at grower meetings, hashtagged on your Twitter feed or even featured on BBC’s Countryfile on a Sunday evening, “no-till” enthusiasts are certainly making a lot of noise. Global grain…

Online resources from AHDB

Field drainage guide

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No-till fact sheet

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Soil assessment fact sheet

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Slug control fact sheet

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