With cereal prices still at a low ebb, the decision whether to crop problem areas or not is an important one for many arable farmers.

The Royston Monitor Farm, where visitors to the open day at the end of May took part in discussions on how one of the fields should be cropped, is no exception.

Pump field at Quickswood Farm is 22ha of variable land with a historic black-grass problem and an irregular shape. The farm has only recently been taken on under a five year tenancy agreement, but the ELS scheme on it runs out in 2017. There is a shoot on the estate, so the field also includes areas of game cover in addition to ponds, woods and footpaths.

Until now the field has been in a winter sown combinable crop rotation.

In 2014/15, the crop net margin from the field varied significantly from a profit on the higher yielding areas to a loss on the poor parts (excluding BPS, rent and finance).

Members of the Monitor Farm group at Royston were tasked with coming up with options for the problem field, taking into account:

-          Field shape & topography

-          Black-grass burden

-          Yield variation

-          Cost/efficiency of operation

-          Impact of ponds, woods & footpaths

-          Opportunities provided by sheep enterprise and stewardship schemes

Suggestions included ploughing and spring cropping; direct-drill and cover cropping; dividing the field into areas of wild bird mix and spring cropping; haylage; lupins, sheep; countryside stewardship. Most groups thought that the field should be split into areas according to the suitability for growing cash crops.

Tim Isaac, East Anglia Manager for AHDB Cereals & Oilseeds, said: “With current prices and agronomic challenges, there may be some situations where it’s better to leave loss making areas uncropped and look at stewardship options instead. Missing awkward corners and compacted headlands to employ straight line farming could reduce operating costs and increase yields. It may even create the opportunity to reduce fixed costs across the whole farm.”

After the group discussions, farm tenant and Royston Monitor Farmer, Jo Franklin, described how her main aim was to balance income because of the commitment to meet rent payments.

“At the moment it looks like we’ll be putting the 5ha which are worst for black-grass into grass for cutting and grazing. The rest will be ploughed and have a crop of spring barley. We’ll have a look at higher tier HLS, with the possibility of a 5-year area of arable regeneration for the sheep.”