Both a former researcher and member of the BBSRC council, arable farmer David Brightman has a unique perspective of UK research

Farming

It’s rare to see researchers who then move into practical farming. How did you end up in both careers?

My father’s family originally farmed near Luton, but as the town expanded, my father looked to set up on his own and bought Gaydon Hill Farm in 1964. I always had an interest in science and went to Newcastle to study for a degree in Agricultural Science.

See also: Researchers closer to solving top UK barley disease

It was there that I became interested in research and ended up at the University of Nottingham where I did a PhD in beef production. After Nottingham, I spent two years lecturing in farming at Brooksby College near Melton Mowbray. Two years later, my father retired so I came back to the family farm.

What has been the key technical challenges on your farm?

Over the years, I expanded the area from 170ha to 240ha by taking on land over on the other side of the M40. The biggest change is that I am in the process of changing the rotation, because of a severe blackgrass problem.

Blackgrass has always been here, but in the dry autumn of 2011, pre-emergence herbicides didn’t work and the following wet season of 2012, herbicides also struggled to control the weed.

In bad areas and in a poor season, wheat yields can be as low as 5-6t/ha, but last year with its good wheat growing weather, my first wheat averaged 11.4t/ha. These fields were not fully free of blackgrass, so there is more to come.

David Brightman in a minute

What are your interests outside work?

I like to follow sport and I am a Leicester Tigers supporter going to games when I can.

What is your greatest achievement?

For the industry, although farmers didn’t think it at the time, it was preventing the pesticide tax that was in the labour manifesto in the 1997 election.

In my role as chairman of the NFU Pesticide Working Group, I worked with Patrick Goldsworthy of the Crop Protection Association to set up the Voluntary Initiative, which brought in sprayer testing, qualifications for sprayer operators and promoting best practice with involvement of water groups.

For me on a personal basis, being a member of the Bbsrc council was a big achievement, being the only farmer among 20 other members overseeing the whole area of biology.

The rotation used to be oilseed rape followed by winter wheat, winter wheat, beans, winter wheat and winter wheat. Now the oilseed rape is followed by winter wheat, spring barley, spring beans, winter wheat and spring barley.

Currently, one-third of the cropping area is spring barley, one-third winter wheat and the rest is spring beans and oilseed rape.

I came to the conclusion that you can’t simply add a spring crop, you have to tailor everything to tackling blackgrass. For example, I opted for spring barley being the most competitive spring crop. I don’t know if this is right or wrong, but I’ve also gone beyond what is advised for seed rate.

The Propino went in at 370 seeds/sq m and I put on as much nitrogen as early as possible to encourage early growth to smother out the blackgrass.

As a farmer, how has research helped you improve your crop management?

It’s really been lots of little things deployed to help the business. One example as mentioned earlier is using spring crops to tackle blackgrsss.

Another is that I came across David Glen and his cultural work on slugs. They are a particular problem on our heavy land and I took on his findings. These included seed-bed quality, depth of sowing – ensuring seed is 40-50mm deep – and good consolidation to prevent slugs grazing down the rows.

I have also volunteered my farm for the new Bbsrc/Hgca Blackgrass Resistance Initiative Bbsrc/Hgca. One exciting part of this is the development of a new rapid test for enhanced metabolism which will speed up the process rather than having to wait to collect seed.

What do you believe are the current gaps in research from a farming perspective?

One gap is trace elements and it comes up at every RB209 review that there is not enough data to enable an update. So when you do tissue tests, no one really knows what the level should be. I see a need for cash to fund work in this area.

I’ve read some pieces about cover crops saying it’s well documented that they are effective against blackgrass. But there is a difference between being well documented and scientifically proven and have not seen any evidence showing this.

Research

Do you see research in a different light having worked at both sides (farmer and researcher)?

Yes I look at the quality of science and whether the trial was properly designed and the statistics properly analysed and robust.

It’s fine when you talk to researchers about trial design, but when they talk to farmers, they don’t want to know. Farmers only want to hear what the highest yielding varieties are.

I am a fan of independent research and have a healthy scepticism. I recall once being a member of a trials centre and went along to see the performance data of strobilurins, as they were new at the time. But they had no data, as members were more interested in which varieties yielded best.

They were talking about differences, but there was a large standard error which meant they were not significant.

What has been your involvement in research since returning to the farm?

I have always kept an interest in research and I was involved in the Sustainable Arable Farming For an Improved Environment (SAFFIE) project, was a director of Rothamsted Research (2006-2013) and a Biotechnology and Biological Sciences

Research Council (Bbsrc) council member (2003-2009) and then the audit board (2009-2012).

Last month I joined the Hgca Research and Knowledge Transfer committee. I’m interested in the research itself and I am looking forward to being involved in reviewing research proposals.

There is often talk of a broken pipeline in research, do you believe there is?

Yes the pipeline is broken. It stems back to the Burns Report when Defra stepped back from near market research. And there was the demise of ADAS and its experimental husbandry farms. There have been various attempts to stick it back together, but with no real success.

As a farmer, I want to see a joining up of applied and basic research, which is what the Technology Strategy Board (TSB) programme is aimed at.

I also would like to see TSB funding ring fenced for agriculture. There have been three for agriculture so far and it would be good to know what is going to be funded next, as the funding covers all industry.

How do you believe the link between basic and applied research can be improved?

There needs to be a greater awareness through the research chain to ensure someone is picking up outcomes from basic research, such as Hgca or TSB rather than reports sitting on a shelf gathering dust. Perhaps funders should put an onus on researchers to go to Hgca to tell them what the findings are and the next step. They know best what needs to be done.

However, it is not all doom and gloom. A few years ago it seemed that the number of papers published in high impact journals was what many researchers at Rothamsted were interested in.

But in North America, researchers started including economic impact and this has become more important than just the number of papers published.

Vision and work with HGCA

What is your role on the Hgca R&KT committee?

The role of Hgca Research committee is to review research applications and decide if they are funded or not. It also indentifies where there are gaps in the research and the committee will put out calls for research, one recent example being soils. It also looks at strategy, but I‘ve missed out this time as the new strategy is about to be published.

What value do you see in Hgca monitor farms?

I was already involved in a local farm group [Warwickshire Rural Hub – Arable Group] which was benchmarking performance. I share labour and machinery with a neighbour, Rob, who is now a Hgca monitor farm and I am part of that group.

It is primarily a benchmarking exercise to help farmers improve their business over three years and each monitor farmer is focussing on a particular subject. For example, Rob is interested in soil and organic matter and is looking at improving soil to help improve his business.

It is good way to link best practice and business performance and has proved successful in Scotland.