Tailored agronomy and precision farming to capitalise on the yield potential of this year’s arable crops and improve return on investment is the theme for ProCam at Lamma.
ProCam’s head of technical development, Rob Adamson notes there’s a lot of crop potential to play for this season but agronomic challenges are also on the horizon as a result of early drilling.
Pointing to crop nutrition as an example, Mr Adamson says feeding, but not over-feeding, varying-sized crop canopies will need a field-by-field approach.
“There will be a good case for considering precision farming technology that uses satellite measurements of crop biomass to apply variable rate nitrogen (N) this season,” he says. “By working with your agronomist to apply variable rate N, the aim is to produce the optimum green area index across each field, while using N cost-effectively.
“Similarly, growth regulator use on large crop canopies created by early drilling and the mild autumn will need careful planning. And getting fungicide timings right will be critical – not least due to early drilling increasing septoria risks and with the breakdown of the YR15 yellow rust resistance gene among winter wheat varieties.
“With early application of autumn soil-acting herbicides due to timely drilling this season, spring weed control will also need strategic consideration – to account for the likelihood that residual activity of these treatments will decline sooner,” he adds.
Mr Adamson says growers can discuss these issues and how to maximise crop potential with agronomists on the ProCam stand, where there will also be a demonstration of the company’s FieldSense precision farming service.
