Archive Article: 2000/03/24
Mike Cumming
Mike Cumming is manager at
Lour Farms, Ladenford,
Forfar, Angus, where spring
malting barley and seed
potatoes occupy about half
the 749ha (1850 acres).
Other crops include winter
wheat, barley, oilseed rape,
swedes and grass
MARCH 9 saw the drill pushed into action and within a week almost half the 243ha (600 acres) of spring barley was in the ground.
All the Optic and half the Chalice was drilled by Mar 14. I was reluctant to start so early after experiences with rook damage. A few years back I had the only crop sown in the district and the weather broke. Rooks from our own large rookery and every cousin from Perth to Peterhead headed this way and left a 60ha (150-acre) battlefield in their wake. Fortunately this year the weather held, and with perfect conditions there is enough in locally to spread the black peril around.
Pastoral winter barley will clearly need a clean-up spray to hold diseases until T1. Mildew is very active and rhyncho is present, so 0.3 litres/ha of Torch (spiroxamine) plus 0.2 litres/ha of Sanction (flusilazole) will be applied shortly.
As expected the remaining 425t of seed potatoes are all required in three days time – or two, "if you can manage it, Mike!" Every merchant thinks his orders are the only ones. Fortunately all stocks have been split and sized to facilitate larger daily volumes when panic buttons are pressed.
In the midst of the depression, BPC advice is grow for a market to secure returns. Sound advice. But I seem to remember it was the statutory powers of market control the PMB possessed that secured its fate. Meanwhile, the market falls into fewer hands each year while varieties in demand are strictly controlled. Hardly a market to get excited about and certainly not free. The BPC must direct levy funds towards reducing the impact of this two-pronged squeeze on producers. Certainly the length of time varieties remain under breeders control distorts the market and a review is long overdue. *
As the last of his potato seed stocks are cleared, Scottish grower Mike Cumming says a review of potato breeders rights is overdue.