Two of Scotland’s nine new monitor farms are taking part in a UK-wide trial to test the use of biostimulant products on combinable crops.
Corskie Farm at Garmouth, near Fochabers, and Mill of Inverarity Farm in Angus, are among a group of 16 farms taking part in the three-year project.
Both are involved in the new Scottish monitor farm programme being run jointly by Quality Meat Scotland and AHDB Cereals and Oilseeds.
Funded by a £1.25million grant from the Scottish Government, the scheme aims to help improve the productivity, profitability and sustainability of Scottish farm businesses.
Iain Green or Corskie Farm said he was excited to try out biostimulants on the farm.
He said: “We are going to be trialling the biostimulant on two fields of spring barley and are really interested to measure its effect on yield. Up in Morayshire it can be very dry so anything that could improve rooting and cause less crop stress could be very beneficial.”
AHDB’s knowledge exchange manager for Scotland, Gavin Dick, said: “The continuing development of targeted biostimulant products by major agrochemical companies means growers need to better understand the management requirements of these products under local field conditions to assess consistency of performance at a regional level.
“The monitor farm programme in Scotland is committed to improving the integration of productive farming and enhancing the environment, so there is a clear synergy in using monitor farms to try-out these products.”
The four biostimulant products being tested on the Scottish farms have been donated by Alltech Crop Science.
All four include microbial and non-microbial components, and are available as a liquid product for application to the soil at planting and a foliar-applied liquid product.
Treatments will be applied to a 6-acre plot of the crop and compared to untreated crop in the field. Various growth, yield and quality parameters will be measured.
The results will be analysed independently and results will be discussed at future meetings of the monitor farms.
Alltech’s regional technical sales manager, Andrew Linscott, said: “This is a great platform to help farmers see and understand the potential benefits of using such technology, including how biostimulants should be used and what they can do.”