Here's a thread for people to comment on stuff they have seen at Cereals 2008.

Just made it to the showground and I am afraid there are already queues to get in. Spent about 15 mins in line. Looks good though.

Weather looks bright and sunny - from the pic of the queue. It is dull and overcast down here in Surrey. Are there many farmers actually at the show - or are the queues just exhibitors?

There are plenty of farmers - they were making everyone wait behind a barrier when I arrived and only letting through exhibitors. Some people are reporting they waited for an hour and a half. People crawling in from A17.

 

As you might imagine the big subject of the day is spiralling costs. The NFU is talking about fertiliser costs, meanwhile the Contractors association is warning that charges will have to rise this summer because of red diesel rises. What everyone is after is solutions.

Do the plots look any good? With so much rain last week I guess the walkways must be pretty cut up, but the big interest will be in the plots and whether they are still standing and whether there's much disease in them. I know they do tend to be fairly manicured, but with a challenging bit of weather it might have flushed out some worthwhile differences, particularly between varieties.

Cereals event owner Haymarket has announced this morning that it is to run a sister event in Poland next year. Same formula - on-farm, crop plots, demo areas, lots of exhibitors - all the usual suppliers, plus some East European specialists. Its farming partner is Spearhead International, which runs Greens of Soham and some potato seed firms in the UK. Definitely a case of what works here will travel. France and Germany have their own versions of Cereals already - the German one is not bad. But this is a big step to take the UK formula overseas. Who knows - where will it appear next? Lord Heseltine, who owns Haymarket, makes no secret of wanting to extend his brands into other markets - just look at his motorsport brand - Autosport and the myriad overseas versions of that. And Haymarket has been building its farming, horticulture and amenity portfolio, which now includes Horticulture Week and a bunch of fruit, hort and amenity events. Being a private firm, if Heza wants something to work, it generally does. Who knows - is FW the next acquisition on his list!?

 

2575713:

Do the plots look any good?

Of course - the crop plots are manicured like a spoilt WAG. Ground dry and hard.

Didnt learn much - machinery seen at LAMMA, crop stuff not new. Chatted to loads of old contacts. Flirted with usual suspects.

Best find was a small stand that puts new rubber on track idlers and drive wheels for a fraction of the price of getting new CAT/AGCO ones. Woohoo.

Sorry I missed you yesterday - despite having a fancy big satellite dish to beam stuff away for the web and for this week's issue of FW, the technology was a nightmare. I spent all day tucked in the back of the stand laboriously sending emails and resizing pictures - what we are working with is about like being on dial up. Which when you are working with video and pictures isn't good news.

I arrived on site about 9am this morning and didn't have to queue at all. But we have just seen a very heavy shower of rain and it is a bit chilly. The first day was the one to go for.

Isabel-re the price of red diesel "what everyone is after is solutions".Surely arable farmers attending the event should realise that if they grow oilseed rape they are hedging against high oil prices,because the higher oil prices go,the higher rape prices go.Every farmer capable of growing rape can produce far more biodiesel than they need to buy.A high rape price one year means higher wheat prices the following year as acreage shifts.Wheat has a value for ethanol production,and the higher the oil price the higher that value is.If farmers are complaining about high fuel prices they are in fact saying that rape and wheat are to dear.If the price of oil collapses and you can buy red for 17p/l what do you think will happen to the price of biodiesel,and thus oilseed rape?Stop complaining and start growing your own fuel if you think it is to expensive to buy!

was very good. Met up with Isabel (pic to follow) and a other friend, I think the best thing i learnt was when you enter the biggest NH there was, always duck else you tend to smack your head of that bit of plastic in the cab unless you are smaller than 3 foot.

Tesla

Can't comment about the machinery etc, but there were definitely new ideas in the crop plots by a few holders... certainly we had never been to Cereals before showing how it's possible to reduce fertilisers and fungicides by 30%, and Soil Solutions had some very interesting comparisons.  Also, maize under plastic was interesting and a relatively new concept. 

Did we go to the same event  ?!

Regards, CW

 

Yea i found the maize under plastic interesting. It seemed rather thin yet did a great job. My uncle came over from canada and came with me - he found the alternative crops  interesting - i though the poppy growing looked great (i think the seeds were grown for medicine).

Same event? Well if you had terrible traffic problems getting out then it must have been cereals.

The white medicinal poppies look great in the field - there was a lovely crop of them just opposite the lincs show last year. Johnson Matthey are the buyer? No good for heavy land and using reglone as the post-em weedkiller scares me, especially as they come after that to decide to pay you or not! The seeds go on bread buns - it is the stems and heads that they extract morphine from. They silage it, rather than combine, and you need some good on-floor drying. Great entry for wheat. Dont grow maize and never will, so plastic not my thing. If it isnt biodegradable it will just give the public the excuse for another anti-farmer winge.

CW, I did have a look around your stand and was quite interested. Not sure what my spray man would say if I told him of the new regime. I maintain soil health with a non-inversion, massivly reduced till / direct drill regime with green manures etc. I could tell people how to halve their oilseed rape seed rates and nitrogen usage and increase their yields. They will all still slap 5kg/ha seed on and wadges of N though. Could you update your website - sepcifically the warwickshire wheat case study? Stands can say what they like, but until I get a heavy land UK case study over a number of years then the risk/expense does not stack up when you actually have things like rent to pay :(

I liked the fert injector for spring N. I thought I could put a small version behind a moore drill and place the N whilst drilling.

Yea that was the buyer. They seemed good, but you cant just grow em in any old soil, it has to be one or the other (i cant remember if he said alkali or acid) and it has to be well drained too. The traffic for us wasnt a bother - after farmer facey put that pic up going in i was a bit worried but when i went on second day, we were in and out with no problems at all, our only problem was when we got back further north. It was a pitty my helicopter wasnt out, i could have just flown in(i wish) :P Did anyone you know fly in?? I was amazed that there was helicopters there)!!!!!!