AHDB York Monitor Farm host David Blacker has used the project experience to cut his business spending by more than £50,000 a year.

David Blacker told attendees at his final Monitor Farm meeting on 28 June that the radical changes he has made to his arable business over the last three years now save him £50,900 a year, compared with what he was spending before the project began.

The savings boil down to:

• Reduction in labour: £12,000
• Reduction in insurance: £6,000
• Stopping tractor hire: £5,000
• Reduction in fertilizer: £5,200
• Reduction in seed cost: £4,000
• Reduction in agronomy: £2,500

David said: “I’ve chipped away at every part of the business. What I’m saving each year is now bigger than my single farm payment.

“I’m hoping that the changes I’ve made will also lead to bigger yields and therefore lower costs of production.”

Over the past three years, the Monitor Farm programme has given David the confidence to continue making changes to his farm, for example cutting out second wheats from his rotation and establishing all his crops with a strip till.

Throughout the project David has run a number of on-farm try-outs to test theories and add local evidence into topical farming debates.

Compost

From 2014 – 17 David applied compost at a rate of 35t/ha, costing him £157.5/ha per year, or £1,181.25 per field per year. He spread 140t/ha over the four years, with a total cost of £4,725.

During this time he has measured a half point rise in phosphate levels, a slight rise in pH and organic matter, and a slight increase in potassium levels on heavier land.

David said: “I’m slightly sceptical that the organic matter has gone up as much as the results say, as it could be due to semi-decomposed matter in the sample.”

Dr Liz Stockdale, from Newcastle University and a staunch supporter of the York Monitor Farm, was on hand to give expert insight into the discussions. She said: “It’s important to look at how the land is working, as the measurable indices don’t give the full picture. Looking at soil as well as analysing it is important to judge impacts.”

David agreed that he was slowly improving his seed bed and soil resilience – something the Monitor Farm group identified as an opportunity in the very first Monitor Farm meeting in 2013.

Liz had more options for David to consider: “You may be able to lower the compost application rate going forward.  The positive impact of compost may not be linear, so you could have more than half the impact with less than half the application rate.”

A biomass map showed that the crop grown on land treated with compost was this spring bigger and healthier than other fields on the farm which had not had compost.
,br />David said: “The main caveat, however, is that I haven’t seen any yield increase yet from using the compost with the same N application. So this year I’ve decreased my N usage to see if I can achieve the same yield but with less N.

“If I can get a cheap supply then I will carry on using compost to help improve the soil structure. It all depends on the price of the compost, however.”

All the meeting reports from the York Monitor Farm can be found at cereals.ahdb.org.uk/york

Monitor Farms and Farm Excellence Platform

AHDB Monitor Farms bring together groups of like-minded farmers who wish to improve their businesses by sharing performance information and best practice around a nationwide network of host farms. AHDB organises and facilitates Monitor Farm meetings for farmers, who own and operate the scheme – by farmers, for farmers. Monitor Farms are part of the AHDB Farm Excellence Platform. The Farm Excellence Platform inspires industry to improve performance and succeed through farmer-to-farmer knowledge exchange.

Monitor Farm benchmarking groups use Farmbench – AHDB’s new whole-farm benchmarking tool. For more information, visit farmbench.org.uk.

To find your nearest Monitor Farm visit cereals.ahdb.org.uk/monitorfarms. For more information on your AHDB Farm Excellence Platform contact your local Knowledge Exchange Manager.