The Crop Sprayer

This year has been a tricky mix of disease and weeds. The high pressure has meant that the use of pesticides has been unavoidable to maintain potentially high yields into harvest.

Protected operator adding high concentration
chemical to the water in tank.

The machine that is used to apply these expensive products is called a crop sprayer (pictured). It is a very detailed piece of machinery that accurately applies the right amount of chemical to the target part of the plant towards which the operator is aiming. Ours is a self propelled sprayer so has its own engine to move it, but you can get different ones that are pulled or mounted on the back of tractors depending on your needs, crops grown and your budget!

The design in theory is very simple. Firstly, a large water tank in the middle that the chemical is added to via an induction bowl at the back. This tank has a pump that circulates the fluid to make a consistent solution. The sprayer has a set of folding booms: ours are 24m wide but some new models have booms of 36m or more. Along the booms, run pipes from the tank that have outlets regularly spaced along them. These outlets have specialist controls and nozzles which do a particular job in releasing the fluid, under the control of the operator on the seat.

The 24m booms open out horizontally for safety so power
lines are not touched by them.

The operator can open the outlets as he drives along, we have 7 sections on our boom so we can shut or open 3.5m at a time. This reduces any over-lapping or under-dosing of the crop. The operator has a computer on board which measures pressure, forward speed, tank level, area covered etc. The computer adjusts the water flow out of the nozzles to make sure that the application of the chemical and water mix is constant over the whole area. We normally apply between 100 and 200 litres of water, mixed with chemical, to each hectare of the individual crops. The chemicals used in the cans are of very high concentration, therefore the operator needs to be trained and protected when handling them out of the special secure store on the farm. Once they are added to the 3000L of water in the tank they become diluted to the desired concentration as determined by the chemical company to do the best job of controlling the weed, pest or disease.

Each chemical that makes it to general sale on farms has had millions of pounds and years of detailed research done on it to make sure it is safe to be used on crops, around humans and has no adverse effect on the environment.  The chemicals under most people’s kitchen sinks are of higher concentrations and more dangerous to the environment than anything we store on the farm - and we have to be trained to use ours!

The sprayer must be maintained to high standards and is the only piece of farm machinery that needs to be tested each year by law. It has an MOT for road worthiness and application of chemicals each year; if it fails, it cannot be used on the farm until it is re-inspected following repairs.

The sprayer applies the chemical solution by producing a line of water droplets out of the nozzles that hit the plant or soil, the nozzles are designed to produce different size droplets of solution so that the farmer gets best use of the chemical. The problem is, that the small droplets can get blown by wind. This is call spray drift and is a problem to the industry. As farms become bigger and labour becomes less on farms, operators are increasingly asked to spray larger areas and they physically cannot cover the areas needed, so they start to compromise on what weather conditions in which they can spray, to make sure they cover all the crops. This means that incidents of drift have become a real problem, so the chemical manufactures have invested in new technology to help reduce drift. The nozzles used to be fairly simple and as the solution was forced through it, it would produce a flat fan of droplets going straight down into the crop. These were ok but the droplet sizes were small and irregular, so the smaller ones drifted off. Now, on our sprayer, we have special nozzles called air induction or bubble jets. These nozzles, at point of release, fill each droplet with air to create a larger heavier droplet. This reduces drift by being heavier but, on impact with the crop, the bubble pops and the chemical solution sprays out to cover the target area of the plant. So one large droplet becomes lots of smaller ones on impact in the safety of the crop canopy and not on anyone’s prize winning roses in a neighbouring garden!

Our Sprayer has three different Nozzles that can be chosen
depending on the target droplet required.

With every application of a chemical, a full traceability record is kept on the farm. Each field has a full record of what has been applied and when. This is done by a work sheet being produced by the farmer and his crop doctor advisor who guides him on how to keep the crops clean of unwanted weeds, pests and disease. The work sheet is then given to the operator who picks the best weather conditions to go and apply the right chemical to the right field. On completion of the job, the operator fills in the date, time, soil conditions; weather conditions; temperature and area covered for the job and then signs it, so that if any problems occur we can trace back a problem to an operation. On the farm we also have a weather station that takes and records all weather conditions on the farm, this helps the operator to predict the current and short term weather as well as backing up the climate conditions of each day, to help with any traceability of problems that could have been caused chemical drift.  Drift is something we and all farmers take very seriously, as it can not only cause damage to sensitive habitats but it is also our pound coins drifting off out of the field which is the target area for which it was bought.  In the last 12 months, we have bought over £100,000 pounds worth of chemicals that have all been applied by the crop sprayer.  It’s an expensive bill and that is why we want to apply it in the optimum conditions by a well maintained, highly advanced machine and secondly we need to keep it in the field where it benefits us and our business. 

The crop sprayer is an important and well used machine on our farm and all farms but chemical control of pests, weeds and disease is not sustainable and that is why it needs to be viewed as the last resort. Cultural controls like different cultivations to kill weeds, crop rotations and choice of which varieties of crop to grow, all play their part in reducing that expensive bill. This year has been a difficult one but who knows what climate change has in store for us next year and beyond!  One thing is for sure, crop sprayers play a massive part in making sure we all are fed each day.        BWB

  

Giant Bird Tables

Every spring areas of our farm is sown with a seed mix totally devoted to farmland birds. These area Patrick and myself call giant bird tables, they do what the name suggests produce huge amounts of seed throughout the hungry gap in winter when natural seed sources in the hedgerows and around the fields have been exhausted. We sow a mix of seed in plots of about 2-3 football pitches located close to natural habitats like hedgerows and woods to give the farmland birds some protection while they forage for the seed. This short video is of Richard Barnes from King Conservation Seed Company explaining the different plants that get sown in the mixes.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n7gJ0cg_N10

We think that these mixes are and will deliver huge amounts of seed for the birds and help to reverse the decline in populations we have seen in Farmland birds since the 1970's as explained in this film.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nwiVYzsbcZ0

BWB

A Tricky Spring Clean!

As we moved into spring we were busy tidying the yard up for our LEAF Launch; sweeping the concrete, cutting the grass, filling pot holes, clearing scrap metal that had built up through the winter and generally trying to make the yard spotless! I do like a tidy yard, tidy yard and desk means a tidy mind and things don’t get forgotten and overlooked. We try and keep on top of the clutter, as we get busy and then on into harvest things become manic but hopefully we remember to put back tools where they live so in the times of emergencies you can lay your hands on everything in a hurry.

We have kept on top of the yard but my attention has been turned to keeping our crops clean! The weather has dramatically changed from one that was relatively low in disease pressure: dry and cool, to disease pressure that is now off the scale.

Disease on the green leaf

All crops suffer throughout the year from attacks from pests, weeds and diseases and farmers combat them throughout the year with the use of cultural controls as well as the agrichemical options. The use of pesticides is always the last resort and they need favourable conditions to work. For instance, herbicides usually need moisture in the soil to activate and this year the seed beds were so dry the activation was very short so we have been swamped with black grass across the country, as the flushes of weeds like this invasive grass kept on germinating through the mild winter. The same happened with aphids in the winter. Being so mild, the aphids transmitted a plat virus that has caused stunning of plants and this has not been seen for years on this scale. Then we come to the disease pressure! I have never - and even the older generations can not remember a year like it. Septoria and Rust have been a huge problem; these two diseases are fungi that attack the plant throughout the growth in the spring. If the crop is left untreated, the fungus spreads up the plant and from plant to plant by air movement as well as rain splashes carrying spores. What we have had this year: high winds and lots of heavy rain droplets, topped with dramatic temperature changes from cool nights to blistering hot sunshine; has led to a running battle to keep the plants clean of disease.

I use the term clean because, if you don’t keep the disease out, the crops turn yellow and brown very quickly and the plant looks dirty with fungus spores. The aim for us is to maintain green leaf for as long as possible. Green leaf is the Holy Grail, especially this year, for, not only is it a great year for fungus growth it is also a great year for crop growth and the yield potential is out there. 

Fungicide Treated

The winter wheat crop has just come to a critical growth period called grain fill. The ear is out and the individual grains have started to form and swell as the water is moved up through the roots from the soil, into the cells of the plant to form each grain. The sun beams down on the crop and photosynthesis gives the plant the energy it needs to maximise all the grain - that hopefully in the end we catch as we combine the crop after it has died naturally and dried out.  The ear and the last leaf to be exposed (known as the flag leaf)contribute to 65% of the yield that we harvest later on, this is why it is paramount to keep the fungicide cover up to prevent the diseases taking a hold of the plant and killing off the green cells. In a normal year, we cover the new leaves 4 times with chemicals that cure and prevent fungus growth. However, this year we have already done 5 and may have to do another! This becomes expensive for us and hopefully we get rewarded with the yields that the crops look to have the potential of giving, come harvest. If we did not spray for the disease so much our crops would be yellow and dead in the field. This is a picture of one of the field edges where the spray never quite reached and you can see there is not much green leaf left compared to the middle of the field.

No Fungicide Treatment

We just hope that this wet and humid weather subsides and the sun arrives for summer and we can fill the barns with nice large swollen grains and our high fungicide bills can be paid off! Time will tell……BWB  

Bridging the gap

One thing we try and do on the farm is bridge the gap between us the farmer and you the general public. This is done by a number of ways either with evening talks to local clubs, farm tours that we have been busy doing in the last couple of months, helping at other larger events such as the Suffolk Schools Farm Fair, Open Farm Sunday (organised through LEAF) and LEAF Technical days which we are heading off to later. All these events are done by invitation and getting people of the farm directly to have a one on one interaction with a farmer. Those who have not been to one of these events can organise their local clubs to have an evening talk or Spring Farm Tour by booking directly with us or through LEAF.

We moved into the modern age and bridge the gap with this Blog, set up so that we could try and keep everyone reading it informed about little things that we find and do through out the year. However we do apologies for the posting as of late, life is busy down on the farm and around the farming community so posting as been infrequent. Sorry for that, note to self, must try harder!

Our latest interactions on the farm for visitors have been installed around the farm, with a large amount of footpaths and bridleways on the farm that are always walked and enjoyed by many. We thought this was an area we could try and feed a little bit on info out and about. So last week our new LEAF information boards have been put up to hopefully give the walkers, horse riders and cyclists a snippet of information as they wander designated routes. They have interesting facts about farmland habitats, species and farming operations with the odd diagram so you can put a machine to the operation.

I hope you find them interesting to read and look forward to seeing on or around the farm, hopefully on the footpaths! BWB

Stop the mower and things appear!

We have pulled back the old school idea that a tidy mown grass drive makes for a welcoming sight on to the farm.
Patrick was really keen to stop the mower from cutting the long drive at Lodge Farm and let the wild flowers establish and use this as a statement of our new wildlife minded approach. In the last couple of years we have seen Black Knapweed and Ox-eyed Daisy's numbers increase no end adding to the Cowslips and Clover which was there but struggling to survive on the drive.

On Wednesday on his walk back to work Patrick discovered something that we had never seen on the farm and this is all due to the change in mentality allowing flowers to actually flower!...........

Our first Bee Orchid to add to the list of Pyramid Orchid and Common Spotted Orchid which we knew we had already.

A nice surprise. BWB

True Great British Spirit

Last week was a very strange week for me. It started off with a double bank holiday for the Queen’s Jubilee celebrations, 3 BBQ's, 2 Cake days and a lot of Pimms or Calvors Lager consumed. Having just moved house, I attended my old village’s party in the village hall. Then the following day I was helping a couple of young residents in my new village to decorate crowns for a crown competition and went to that Jubilee party on the lawn. The weather didn’t dampen the true Great British spirit at either venue, with everyone dressed up in red, white and blue rain coats and rugs.

The only day of work on the farm was Wednesday! We are doing some much needed building repair to one of the old pig sheds and so we were quickly trying to get the new roof sheets on the old steel frame before the rain and wind got too much and the Health and Safety alarm bell in my head started ringing. We managed to get them all done and installed, with plenty of time to spare and the rest of the painting and walling will follow on smoothly this week now.

Thursday was the start of the County show season for us. The much anticipated and looked forward to Suffolk Show started on a chilly damp Thursday but the smiles of the occasion brought out the sun at times in the morning. All our family are involved in the planning of the show beforehand and during the two days. 

The Suffolk show is a great event where people far and wide come to see the best of the best that Suffolk has to offer: horses, sheep, pigs, cattle, machinery, art, crafts, clothes, cars. The list is endless and it is a great time to catch up with friends, make new ones and network with other businesses. The numbers coming through the gate were slightly down due, I think, to everyone being Jubilee’d out – and the weather! But the hardy souls that did come had a great show to look around.

I was given a very important job on Thursday. Having rescheduled my stewarding rota, I had to leave the Showground to pick up a VIP from the railway station. This was something I was looking forward to but was concerned because to get back in the Showground at 10am in the past has been very tricky due to all the extra traffic going to the site. I picked up the sponsor’s car and sat in it to find it was an automatic It then took a couple of minutes to find the automatic handbrake and how to get the car moving! I managed it and arrived in good time to await the arrival of the VIP!

The London Train was on time and my guest, the Secretary of State for the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, Caroline Spelman MP was on board.  The Minister had been invited by the Suffolk Agricultural Association’s new President, Lord Deben, and it was her first time in attending the Suffolk Show. She had heard great things about the event and how it had retained its Agricultural background. We drove from the station and I had the opportunity to talk about the show, myself, our farm and LEAF. We managed to get back into the Show within 25 minutes and I left her to be taken round by a show organiser. She was thrilled to see the Suffolk Punches being shown in the ring as we pulled up amongst the crowd.  I do hope she enjoyed her invitation and day at the show.

The rest of Thursday went well but the weather started to deteriorate and this caused a few unexpected headaches for me as a steward and for the show organisers, but the Show must go on – or so we thought!

Friday was a different story altogether! High winds and driving rain made for a very uneasy drive to the second day at the showground. The normal pre day prep on the exhibitors’ stands was starting as we arrived at 6.30am. Patrick and I caught an early breakfast and rumours were already starting to circulate about the possibility of shutting the event down! In 181years of the Show this had never been done. To shut the show in the middle would be only done if there was a major incident or it was unsafe for people to be on site. It would take a massive call from the show committee and group of Senior Stewards but it would only be done for the right reasons.

Sure enough, that call had to be made and the gates shut at 8.15am. It was then all hands to the pump making sure everyone was told and anything not tied down was needed to be pulled down and removed as the wind picked up. The Show Committee, Showground maintenance team and all the voluntary Stewards did a tremendous job in the face of adversity. Some Exhibitors and General Public were a bit miffed by the decision but when one of the largest temporary structures on the showground: the food hall marquee, lifted up and moved, it put the day into perspective.  By midday many store holders had got their tents and gazebos down but those who hadn’t watched as one by one the wind lifted them up and rolled them over the ground or onto other stands. It was a scary place to be with 90mph gusts of wind, flying marquees and whipping ropes & tent flaps and this is why they evacuated the whole ground at 1.30pm.

It was a very sad day for all involved. Stewards and organisers described it as if they had been bereaved and were in a state of shock. Luckily no one was hurt or died and the show will be back next year bigger and stronger and possibly with a few more guy ropes on the marquees!

Our next show is Cereals, the biggest farming event of the year, followed by the Norfolk show, so fingers crossed for these events. Other than this, the farm is ticking along with the crops looking windswept but well. Sunshine is much needed from now until harvest and beyond, so, in the words of my mother when I was a little boy….’Smiles bring sunshine,’ - please get smiling and do your best for us!                                 BWB

Reduce our Carbon foot print!

One thing we have to consider with all operations on the farm is our Carbon footprint. Farmers have got to use to driving their tractors so found this bit of equipment that will cut out the engine, improve the stamina and allow us to cut all our 180acres of hay by hand!

Just don't think everyone will be volunteering to head out with the mower so readily, maybe with this one they might! Farm machinery just keeps getting bigger and bigger!