When a farm manager employed by one of the world’s leading agchem companies talks about blackgrass being one of his main challenges over the next decade, it brings home the seriousness of the problem.

Innes McEwen, who manages 370ha of mainly arable land at Syngenta’s Jealott’s Hill Farm in Berkshire, knows as well as anyone that there is no miracle cure about to emerge from his employer’s pipeline, or any other company’s, in the near future.

Keeping on top of blackgrass is one of a trio of key initiatives being examined on the farm. The others are precision farming – focusing on interpreting and making best use of the wealth of information it produces – and assessing environmental schemes for practicality and contribution to the business.

Given the farm’s high profile – it is a LEAF demonstration farm, an Open Farm Sunday participant and plays host to DEFRA officials, politicians, non-governmental organisations and farmers, as well as Syngenta’s own employees – Mr McEwen has the ear of some key influencers and decision-makers, as well as the public.

He is making the most of that opportunity to relay some important messages to help ensure farmers’ problems are more widely understood.

He is keen to point out that those messages reflect real life. Syngenta may own Jealott’s Hill, but the farm is run on strictly commercial lines. “We may go to our parent company for capital, rather than the bank, but it is as tough, if not tougher, to obtain funds. Everything has to be fully justified.”

The farm is similar to many other arable operations, he maintains. “We do not claim to be a centre of excellence. That is not our remit. We want to be a centre of relevance.”

The result is a business that also provides Syngenta with a real insight into the problems faced by its customers. That, says Mr McEwen, helps the company develop suitable products and services to address those problems.

The farm’s emphasis is very much on independence, despite its Syngenta parent. “We use an independent agronomist and buying group. We use products that we need – we are not a showcase for Syngenta. There are plenty of trial sites that serve that purpose.”

Farmers visiting Jealott’s Hill won’t see hundreds of trial plots demonstrating blackgrass control. What they will see is some very practical management to help control its spread.

Although only a few blackgrass patches on the heavier land are showing both enhanced metabolism and target site resistance, memories of carpets of resistant blackgrass from his previous post in Bedfordshire are still fresh.

“I don’t have to travel very far to see some real problems,” says Mr McEwen. “We are treating the farm as though every field has a blackgrass problem.”

The biggest and perhaps most effective step taken is the introduction of spring wheat or barley into the rotation. A fast-growing Westerwolds ryegrass/vetch ley is scratched into stubbles to extract moisture to help ensure an early start to the spring drilling programme. The ley, along with any blackgrass, is sprayed off before the spring crop is direct drilled.

“Our Natural England adviser is happy with this – we are not cultivating the stubbles, so they still qualify for overwinter stubble points. These make up about 40% of our ELS total.”

Delayed drilling was adopted last autumn to allow more time to create stale seed-beds and destroy subsequent blackgrass flushes. “Usually we start drilling heavier land from mid-September, but last autumn we waited a couple of weeks.”

It was not the best year to adopt the strategy, he admits. By late October, about a quarter of the 160ha wheat crop remained unsown.

Fast forward to February and 24ha remains unsown. Half of the sown area has come out of the winter reasonably well, however, the crops drilled onto frosts in mid-December still have a way to go to catch up.

The unsown area will now be drilled with maize. But he remains convinced that pushing the blackgrass control strategy beyond the norm is well worth it.

“It is costing money, but for how long? By adopting these practices now I am convinced the farm will be making as much money in 10 years’ time, and much more than if we had stuck with the old strategy.”

Some of the heavy land is also being cropped with a two-year grass/clover ley for the 120 cattle finished on-farm each year, which Mr McEwen believes will help keep blackgrass at bay.

He believes a similar mix with additional wildflowers could be included under environmental schemes, combining the commercial benefit of controlling highly-resistant blackgrass while encouraging a diverse habitat.

Such thinking provides the foundation for all the environmental work at Jealott’s Hill. The farm is in HLS and about 8% of the arable land (including winter stubbles) has been taken out of production.

“We have targeted the permanent areas, taking awkward corners and low-yielding areas out and putting margins alongside ditches,” says Mr McEwen. “We are now farming the parts of the farm we should be much more effectively.”

He is also working closely with the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology and the Wildlife Farming Company, trialling 27 different species of flowers used in commercial mixes for ease of management and contribution to biodiversity.

In addition, a new wildflower seed mix has been planted alongside oilseed rape crops. The aim is to see if it can attract more pollinators and influence yield and oil content. The work is part of Operation Pollinator, a five-year Syngenta programme to increase pollinating insect numbers on commercial farms.

“We are trying to put some reason behind this environmental work,” says Mr McEwen. “Many schemes are not popular, but we farmers have to deliver if we want to retain payments from the public purse.

“We want to develop solutions – legislators need to realise these crops need to be farmed and if they can provide a commercial advantage that can only help uptake.”

Precision farming

The practicalities of precision farming on a medium-sized arable unit are under scrutiny at Jealott’s Hill.

Yield mapping has been carried out for some years, and the physical and nutrient statuses of all fields were mapped last summer by precision farming service provider Courtyard Partnership. A suitable GPS system is now being evaluated.

“We cannot spread the cost of this technology over several thousand acres and we have to justify the cost,” says Innes McEwen. “It could be an incredibly powerful tool – we are generating vast amounts of information, and now we need to discover how to bring it all together to enable us to target variable rates to make better use of inputs.”

Weed mapping is the next big step. “We are currently basing these on walking and observations from the cab, and tying in with yield maps. We are looking at opportunities to map in different ways, for example using on-board cameras that recognise plant shapes.”

Improving oilseed rape yields highlight the potential, he adds. “This year we managed to achieve 4.2t/ha. Using soil sampling results, tissue analysis and GAI assessment, we can tailor nutrients more preciselyto individual crops.

“Like all precision farming tools being assessed, this is not a cost-cutting exercise, but an opportunity to increase returns from every application.”