The challenge: To raise wheat profits by
19 February 2000
The challenge: To raise wheat profits by
Speakers at a recent conference, organised by Banks Agriculture, grasped the nettle. Gilly Johnson reports on their solutions.
Imaginative action
DONT just tweak at the edges of your business," advised Simon Ward of Bidwells. "You cant expect to solve the problem by doing tomorrow what youre doing today – but better. You need imagination."
Many growers might think that by expanding the area farmed by 20%, that should increase profitability accordingly. Beware, he warned. "If you could expand like this without taking on extra machinery and labour, then youre already 20% dangerously over- machined, and overstaffed."
Savings of £50/ha are achievable, however, under Agenda 2000. "Plan your rotation more carefully – increase the cereal acreage. Lower your costs: labour and machinery should be under £235/ha, which includes your own labour. Be prepared to man and equip your business for only nine months of the year, buying in so that you can service peak demand periods. And watch labour demand – it may be worth abandoning spring cropping altogether. Expansion, whether through power sharing or joint ventures, should be considered."
Growers must make better use of agronomy, exploiting the best new crop protection materials to stay ahead, said Mr Ward. He held out a glimmer of hope on world wheat prices – but only for 18 months ahead, and with the rider that any improvement would be small.
Smart moves with varieties
YOU can save significant money by being smarter with the farms variety portfolio, said John Howie of plant breeder PBI Cambridge (now part of Monsanto). The trick is to consider the whole farm system, which includes harvest, drilling and spraying logistics and first/second wheat proportions, as well as simple variety yield potential.
Taking a model farm of 400ha, running farm-saved Riband, Consort as a second wheat, and Malacca as a premium breadmaker, he demonstrated what a difference variety can make.
A switch to high yielding Napier (and he made no apologies for this being the PBIs latest variety) boosts performance so much, that it outweighs the savings made on FSS Riband – despite the extra cost of C2 seed. Knowing more about the variety allows further savings; Napier is a high tillering wheat so you can cut seed rates, and it has better disease resistance, so should not cost as much in fungicide. It can be drilled later, and as a second wheat, and develops faster, making an ideal companion for Consort drilled earlier as they move into the critical T1 timing almost simultaneously.
Next improvement is to increase the odds on achieving full breadmaking spec with Malacca. Replacing some Malacca with grade 2 milling wheat Charger allows later drilling and also spreads the harvest workload, thanks to early maturity. And that means less danger of a holdup at a critical time.
Plumbing the figures into his farm model, Mr Howie came up with a £20/ha improvement – which does not include these logistical benefits, so the true picture is even more attractive, he said.
Abandon the plough
ANYONE using a Suffolk coulter drill is spending £25/ha in over-cultivation: hard talking from Steve Townsend, minimum tillage consultant. Drill design is a sore point for Mr Townsend. Far better is to use a drill with a more flexible coulter design, such as a robust disc, which will give some cultivation at the time of drilling, better seed placement and a higher forward speed.
Today 85% of his clients land is ploughed. He expects to see this fall to just 15%, in favour of reduced tillage systems. And the cultivator drill is a key component. "40-45% of crop costs come from the establishment phase. If we move less soil, theres a big opportunity for saving a lot of money, and time. How much longer can you continue to expend energy ploughing and then go through again to grind it back down to a seedbed?"
Worst of both worlds is where growers run twin systems – ploughing and minimum tillage – in parallel. This adds cost to the business instead of reducing them, he said.
He went on to insist that arable businesses should aim for just one tractor for both cultivation and drilling: "This may go against the grain. Many farms I see have more tractors than there are men to drive them. This is a nonsense; far more efficient would be to have two men drive one tractor in a shift situation. Depreciation is a huge cost."
Saving tractor hours may not be a real money saving. Quoting one typical farm example, Mr Townsend explained that a 190hp unit, run for 390 hours a year, cost £36/hour not including interest on capital, totting up to £64/ha for crop establishment over the whole farm system.
A switch to a new drill would reduce time spent to 150 hours a year, but this would only increase the cost per hour and raise the establishment cost to £59/ha. So a better answer is to put in 1,000 hours on the tractor clock by hiring out, which brings cost down to £22/hour and so reduces establishment cost to a mere £39/ha.
"In fact in this case we hired in a tractor instead; there werent many opportunities to hire out in the area. But it goes to show that saving tractor hours can be a false economy."
PLEASE, please – lets have better store management, begs Richard Whitlock of Banks Agriculture. "This has been the worst year for grain intake rejections we have ever seen – all because of bad store management." A combination of the wet harvest, diseased grain, the mild autumn, over-filled stores and making do with less-than-appropriate stores has led to some of the worst grain samples ever, now arriving from farms. "It wastes your time, our time, and loses money for both merchant and grower."
Potential savings = £15-30/ha