Pantyderi Project Introduction - YEN Grain Nutrient Benchmarking
Site: Pantyderi
Technical Officer: Delana Davies
Project Title: YEN Grain Nutrient Benchmarking
Introduction to project:
The Yield Enhancement Network (YEN) connects agricultural organisations and farmers who are striving to improve crop yields with the aim of closing the gap between current and potential yields.
The need for routine grain analysis has grown increasingly evident over recent years. Grain testing of over 900 samples from YEN farmers over the last four years revealed that 74% of cereal crops were deficient in at least one nutrient. This indicates that despite the best efforts of many growers, nutrition was commonly inhibiting the full potential of their crops.
While soil analysis can identify availabilities of P, K and Mg, and leaf analysis can reveal immediate nutrient shortages, grain analysis provides information on whether a crop captured enough of each essential nutrient throughout its entire life.
It is for this reason that the AHDB’s Nutrient Management Guide (RB209) will now recommend routine analysis of grain and other harvested materials alongside routine analysis of nutrients in soil. This makes the UK the first country to realise that grain analysis not only provides an accurate estimate of nutrient offtakes, but that it also provides a full and final post-mortem of the crop’s levels of all 12 essential nutrients.
Equipped with a better understanding of their crop’s nutritional uptake abilities, experts believe that farmers and agronomists could soon apply nutrients (especially P and K) more accurately, and the improved outcome for nutrient applications will minimise costs and environmental impacts.
Project objectives:
The aim of the project will be to benchmark nutrients in samples of grain at harvest from the winter barley, winter wheat and spring barley crops at Pantyderi, with the objective of correcting nutrition in respect of any deficient nutrients to improve future crop yields and quality.
YEN Grain Nutrient Benchmarking enables you to:
1. Estimate P and K offtakes accurately saving ~£50 / field on average
2. Double-check against the results of any soil and leaf analysis
3. Check on whether rooting etc. was adequate
4. Check on whether nutrient sprays worked
5. See probable causes of low crop yields
6. Confirm main nutrition issues for the future.
It is estimated that the average YEN crop would have benefited by at least £500 per field if it had received optimal nutrition.
What will be done:
Samples of grain will be submitted to the laboratory at harvest from six fields at Pantyderi. To increase the volume of data and facilitate benchmarking against concurrent crops grown in the locality, six grain fields will also be sampled from a further five farms in north Pembrokeshire.
Grain analysis will be carried out to provide levels of all 12 essential nutrients: nitrogen (N), potassium (K), phosphorus (P), sulphur (S), calcium (Ca), magnesium (Mg), manganese (Mn), zinc (Zn), copper (Cu), iron (Fe), boron (B) and molybdenum (Mo).
Results will be benchmarked through the YEN Grain Nutrition tool, initially for the six participating farms, and then against grain samples harvested on a national basis. Feedback will be provided to all six farms on the nutrient status of their crops together with recommendations for rectifying any deficiencies for growing future grain crops.
Timeline:
2020
July-September - Collection of grain samples at harvest and submission to laboratory
October - Feedback of benchmarked group results
December - Feedback of group results benchmarked against national results