by Jonathan Holmes | Jan 20, 2022 | Soil
Everybody’s talking about ‘carbon capture’ and increasing soil carbon; we say ‘bring on the worms’! A good worm population (10 to 25 worms per square metre) can significantly help redress soil balance in favour of crop production. Worms...
by Jonathan Holmes | Jan 10, 2022 | Grassland Management, Soil
Everyone tells you to grow ryegrass, yet Cocksfoot can yield as much as ryegrass and is completely weather tolerant. Grass is the cheapest source of energy but managing the grassland to optimise nutritional content of the grazing land, or more crucially forage, takes...
by Jonathan Holmes | Apr 15, 2021 | Soil
Five years I was asked to help investigate problems on a farm where the son had taken over a few years before and had been moving away from a plough-based system into organic manure applications, a minimum tillage regimen, and was considering cover crops. He...
by Jonathan Holmes | Jan 11, 2021 | Soil
I have long been advocating the imperative to match cultivation strategy to soil type as in the schematic below. The photographs later in this article highlight this concept really well. They certainly demonstrate what the cost is of implementing inappropriate...
by Jonathan Holmes | Dec 8, 2020 | Soil
Improving farm soil to align with the Agriculture Bill – find out what is happening in your soil. The Agriculture Bill legislation introduces a new land management system that will replace the Basic Payment Scheme subsidy system over the next seven years. It...
by Jonathan Holmes | Sep 2, 2020 | Grassland Management, Soil
Most cover crops these days are implemented for two reasons. To cope with an infestation of graminicide resistant black grass or ryegrass. Or, to restructure soil. Although they are usually recommended for these two different purposes, they can be interchangeable....
