20.07.05 - SORTING SOMERSET SLOPES
A combination of light soils and sloping ground makes growing 250 acres of potatoes a challenge for Dillington Estates.
The company – based at Whitelackington near Ilminster, Somerset – runs 2,000 acres at home with another 700 acres in blocks nearby. Wheat, oilseed rape and potatoes are the main arable crops, alongside forage maize frown for the 180 strong dairy herd.
Manager Chris Wilson is very aware of the threat of soil erosion, either caused by rainfall or irrigation, and has taken active steps to avoid it, including stopping growing sugar beet entirely, and avoiding growing potatoes in unsuitable fields.
This year they finished potato lifting by the end of the first week in October to ensure they were not caught by the weather: “We could have left it a fortnight longer to let them bulk up a bit more. By lifting earlier we may have suffered a slight yield penalty, but we avoided any chance of weather problems”.
In the past the potential environmental problems would have been serious enough, but with all farmers now having to consider their Cross Compliance obligations, it is the sort of decision many other people may have to consider making in future
“Half our land has some sort of slope on it, and we would have real problems if the weather turns at the wrong time. Also, many of our soils are light and have a tendency to cap. In both scenarios this can cause problems of erosion and gullying, and in the past five years we have changed several things to minimise the problems”, says Chris.
Their latest innovation is to run Simba’s Aqueel roller as the rear press behind their Grimme planter. The Aqueel is made of a durable micro-cellular polyurethane material and presses a lattice of divots into cultivated soil. These trap water where it falls, giving it time to percolate into the soil and preventing it from running across the surface and causing erosion.
It has proved effective where other mechanical solutions did not, says Chris: “We tried a Damadyke, which raised dykes in the wheelings between the potato rows. But harvesting was like driving up a flight of stairs. It was also another job to install them and would have meant another pass to destroy them ahead of harvest”.
The Aqueel, by contrast, is mounted behind their Grimme two row planter and presses divots into the top of what Chris calls their “lazy M” beds, and as well as protecting the soil against erosion achieves excellent consolidation:
“If our lighter soils cap and crust it inhibits crop emergence and also increase the risk of lateral water movement and erosion. The Aqueel helped control it this spring. The consolidation it provided also stabilised the beds and meant we suffered less cracking of the sides of the ridges later on during the season”.
This also reduces ‘greening’ of exposed tubers – a valuable benefit as their crops go for supermarket pre-packs - and should reduce the threat from diseases as well.
“The Aqueel firms the ridges well. It doesn’t need to leave a perfect pattern of divots to be effective. On the lighter soils it leaves a clear pattern, but on the heavier soils it doesn’t. It leaves a dimpled surface that still prevents lateral water movement”.
He is now considering whether to fit a second Aqueel in place of the existing packer roller behind the subsoiler which does the initial cultivation for potatoes, as this roller tends to block in adverse conditions, whereas the Aqueel’s flexible material is proven to run clean in virtually any soil type and conditions, although another alternative may be a set of Simba’s DD press rings.