Archive Article: 2000/02/05

5 February 2000

&#8226 East Anglian and West Midland growers have until the end of March to join MAFFs Arable Stewardship Pilot Scheme. Annual payments range from £55 to £540/ha for different wildlife-friendly options which include winter-sown stubbles, spring-sown crops and crops undersown with grass.

&#8226 Aventis CropScience is the name of the new crop protection business formed with the merger of AgrEvo and Rhône-Poulenc. With headquarters in Ongar, Essex, it becomes the worlds largest life science company with more than 90,000 employees worldwide. Last month Novartis and Zeneca announced their intention to merge and will become known as Syngenta.

&#8226 Warnings of fertiliser delivery problems in the spring are being forecast by UKASTA following new legislation which requires hauliers transporting fertiliser to employ a Dangerous Goods Safety Adviser. Early plantings and good growing conditions which are using up autumn reserves are likely to create greater spring applications, predicts UKASTAs Tony Simpson.

&#8226 Fancy a walk on the wild side? Stephen Carr is leading a small, but exclusive, group to the Himalayas on 21 May to 4 June. Its a chance to visit the Shangri-la area with its terraced hill farming as well as visit the Taj Mahal and Shimla, former capital of the Raj. Cost is £1,450 inclusive (airport tax extra). Contact Bob Newbury on 01323 422213 for further information.

&#8226 Pauls Malt has closed its Wallingford maltings in Oxfordshire threatening the viability of growing malting barley in the south of England, according to the NFU. Wallingford is a casualty of an over-supplied domestic market, according to the company. Production of malt for the home-brewing industry by Pauls Malt will now be concentrated at Knapton in North Yorks.

&#8226 The Rhizomania Stewardship Scheme which allows growers whose land is affected by the disease to assign their contracts to non-rhizo infected land is proving to be a great success according to the NFU and British Sugar. Over 40% of beet on all outbreak farms has now been moved to non-affected rhizo land, greatly reducing the likelihood of further spread by denying the disease a host crop. Bids in the tender system were oversubscribed by 12 times, ensuring a pool price of £13.70 for rhizo-growers successfully offering their contracts.

&#8226 Scientists at HRI Wellesborne have isolated soil-living bacteria capable of degrading several different pesticides. Their work presents the opportunity to locate areas where pesticide-degrading bacteria are prevalent, and, where they are not in order to recommend alternative methods of control.

&#8226 Tesco is insisting that fresh produce must not be grown on land that has been used for GM crop trials until further notice.

&#8226 The future of UK-grown hemp and flax looks bleak if new regulations, which put the crops into the eligible arable area package and the reduced aid level of £237/ha in 2002, being proposed by the commission are accepted. At the moment both crops can be grown on non-IACS registered land and currently attract a subsidy of more than twice the proposed arable area aid.

&#8226 The IACS booklets include a new regulation on field margin width which will either necessitate extensive re-measuring of fields or lead many to grub out field margins. The Year 2000 scheme rules states that where the distance between the centre of the boundary and the beginning of the cropped area exceeds 2m, the excess area will have to be excluded from the claimed area.

&#8226 Rapemeal could be used to clear up oil spills and other hydrocarbon pollutants according to research funded by the HGCA. Researchers at Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh believe that oilseed rapemeal has great potential as a support material for oil degrading bacteria.