Growth guide to come from web barley monitor
Growth guide to come from web barley monitor
By Andrew Swallow
VIEW the vital statistics of barley crops across the country by logging onto www.hgca.com, suggests the HGCA.
It is putting the crop development data from six reference sites from Aberdeen to central England online.
The long-term aim is to gather three years data, which will be used to produce a Barley Growth Guide in 2005, along the lines of the Wheat Growth Guide produced in 1997.
In the meantime, the development data and photographs of the plots online should give growers useful benchmarks to measure their own crop development against, says research communications manager Clare Kelly.
"In particular the photographs will provide a valuable tool for assessing canopy size."
Data for the £582,000 joint HGCA and SEERAD funded project is being collected by SAC, ADAS and the University of Nottingham and collated at ADAS Rosemaund. Plant counts, tiller numbers and crop biomass are presented graphically for each site, as well as weather data.
"Things are starting to hot up now with data coming in fortnightly. From early May to crop maturity it will be weekly." *
BARLEY BENCHMARKSITES
• Bucksburn, Aberdeenshire.
• Hillend, Edinburgh.
• High Mowthorpe, North Yorks.
• Kings Lynn, Norfolk.
• Sutton Bonnington, Notts.
• Rosemaund, Herefordshire.