A new proposal has been started. Loomio seems to have stopped notifying everyone about new proposals, which is the reason for this post, circulated to all paid up members who have joined the Loomio Group. (those 5 who have not joined, have no vote).

the proposal about using Nitrogen fertiliser - ends on Thursday morning at 09:00

@alexandrasexton @alfredlawrie @andreadibiagio @averilglencross @catherinearend @christinelewis @danielkindred @darren4 @edibleutopia @edna @ellemcall @emersoncsorba @carolingoethel1 @harryboglione @harrygreenfield1 @jamestickell @johnanthonyallan @karlschneider @lucybradley1 @matteodv @matthewshribman @nikireynolds @nikitagulhane @romymiller @sadhbhmoore @seangifford @sebastianpowell @shyamdesai @sineadfenton @stevenjacobs @stinewilhelmsen @tamsynforsyth @tessatricks @tristramstuart @veronicalopesdasil1 @wendyalcock

Thank you John for the information on the proposed application of nitrogen. I voted yes.
It seems sensible to give a relatively small application in that we don't want the spelt to get too tall and perhaps lodge.
The new moist conditions will I understand mean that the N will be very effective.
Do you use any sensing technique to detect what appllciation of N is needed? I understand that there is NIR (near infra red) hand held imaging equipment that is supposed to provide useful information.

Hi John, we've worked developing & testing NIR sensors for N status in crops, but there isn't yet a widely accepted approach to use this to directly give an N recommendation for wheat or barley. There certainly won't be any calibrations that are proven for spring spelt in the UK!

@grahamehunter please can we extend the deadline for this proposal until middle of next week? I think we need at least a week for people to learn what's at stake and make a decision as I feel like this is an important choice.

@johncherry @grahamehunter @abbyrose yes it would be good to hear some counter arguments for applying nitrogen. At the moment it seems like a no brainer to put a bit on and give the spelt a boost, but I am unaware of how this would affect soil health or any other issues it can cause. I'll do a little bit of research now and see what I can find.

This is an interesting read: https://www.biofortified.org/2013/04/an-unlikely-fix-nitrogen-fertilizer-and-organic-agriculture/

It hasn't helped me decide yet!

I just found this: https://www.growjourney.com/5-facts-synthetic-nitrogen-fertilizer/#.WSWOnRPytWc

I don't have time to read it now, but I will try and check it out later.

Is the deadline for voting definitely tonight? I agree with @abbyrose it would be good to have the weekend to research this @grahamehunter

I'm happy to extend deadline, in reality we are unlikely to apply nitrogen until next week now. (We've got busy silaging and it's also a bit dry on the soil surface so spread fertiliser won't soak in). 9 am Wednesday morning works for me, I'll have a word with Grahame and extend it until then.

I am reluctant to extend the vote beyond Monday; something unforseen may come up, and we may need to communicate with the group, and still leave John a margin of time to react and still be on the field if necessary commencing the Wednesday 31 May. There might even be a tied vote!

As some one who believes in not using chemical imputes on crops i would personally oped out of using nitrogen on the field for the following reasons. 1st i think it totally defeats the point of under-sowing the spelt with clover and clover dose not do well if you apply nitrogen to it. 2nd if your applying nitrogen to get the spelt to grow away from the weeds you are also applying it to the weeds which will also make them grow faster. 3rd as we are growing spelt which tends to be a tall crop we are potentially going to put the crop at a grater risk of lodging (falling over making it very hard to pick up with the combine) as a result reducing the yield. 4th altho it is a relatively low dose of nitrogen it will increase the crops venerability to disease down the line. to conclude i co-invested in the project in the name of collaboration and experimentation not to make a profit on my investment and if i don't try to do things differently i won't learn from the experience.

I am appreciating the discussion very much indeed. It would be very useful if John and/or Richard could have time to comment. Thank you Daniel for the comment on the NIR (near infra-red) sensor.

I would be curious to see what the impact of applying fertiliser to only part of the crop would be. How much competition are the weeds to the spelt - will they deny the spelt space/nutrient/light too quickly to allow it to get a foothold? Purely from a laypersons perspective I have no real concept of what happens to the potential yield if artificial inputs aren't used within a no till framework but I do think Harry B raises some good points.
I would be more interested to see our field follow a low input route with an eye to seeing at what impact this has on the field's soil profile and fertility over the next few seasons.
Since use of fertiliser on only part of the field is not an option I shall vote for no use of fertiliser.

I originally agreed to apply fertiliser, but after much research and deliberation I have changed my mind and voted to disagree with applying fertiliser.. I believe it would be good to see how the crop fares without any artificial applications and keep to organic principles.

Hi there,

My apologies for not getting into vote. I have been having trouble logging in and once logged in lose connection

I know its too late however my vote would have been no as I feel as the project is an experiment it would be interesting to see if we could do without.

@averilglencross the deadline was extended until 11pm tonight - so please do cast your vote today

I had trouble logging in and I found the answer was to google Loomio and then log in afresh that way rather than via the email link.. Hope this will help anyone who has logging in problems

Lots of great reasoning and comments from everyone - thank you. I feel a bit nervous about our spring spelt. I recognise that I'm relatively comfortable with the risk that I might lose £150, but if I was the sole farmer and had invested £10,000 in the field I would not be comfortable with risking losing it all. So the shared risk is heavily affecting my decision...and I also want to acknowledge that @johncherry you are much more invested in this field than any of us with about a £3000 share. So you have more to lose than any of us...but also potentially more to gain as many of us have voted for long-term health benefits to the soil over short-term gains for our crop.
My ideal scenario would be to apply Nitrogen as you have suggested to half the field and then no Nitrogen to the other half and see what happens - this would be a great learning experience. If we chose just one or the other we will never know what affect the Nitrogen application really has. If you have time to comment on everything so far @johncherry and how you are feeling about a nitrogen application or not sometime today before the vote closes that would be amazing :)... I'm still a bit on the fence!

I would like to propose doing half and half also..

Happy to do half and half. In Italy at minute and v slow typing on phone so won't elaborate.

I like the idea of going half and hLf.. Would be fascinating to see the outcome..

Thank you Niki.

The one problem I have is I have forgotten my password and when I logo in the other way I have it saved.

My mistake should have written it down.

Hi Averil,

Maybe when you try to log in and put any password in there should be a pop up message to say 'Forgotton Password' click onto that then you can re-set it..
Good luck

Niki xx

Hi Niki,

I went in a different way and have voted.

Thank you

Averil

Hi Averil,

That's excellent..

Niki xx

Admin matters - log in questions etc.
@nikitagulhane @averilglencross

don't forget the other discussion threads for admin and technical questions; and off topic discussions.

Everyone should note that there are separate threads for matters which do not relate to the crop conversation. It is nice to keep them distinct, otherwise the thread can become somewhat unwieldy and everyone has to scroll through matters about voting or logging in, or baking etc 🐰 to try to get to the points about the crop.

What a fascinating debate. While I prefer to add some nutrition to the field I understand and welcome the debate for the options not to. But we cannot have the option to go with half with and half without under this specific vote. We can have an additional vote but I worry about delay. Nutrition is one thing but then pesticide will be another - what other votes will we need to come to a consensus with and what is the most important. Does nutrition mean the crop is better placed to withstand weeds and make it less likely to need pesticide. I prefer nutrition than pesticide. Hey ho - happy to go with the end result as I am learning a lot but feel I know too little.

My main concern with a 50/50 split, if at all feasible, is that it may give us a skewed comparison over a relatively short time frame of the differences between using a nitrogen fertiliser vs not using the fertiliser. In other words, I'm afraid it would give us a misleading result that favours the nitrogen fertiliser option as it's more productive in the short run, while overlooking the potential long term (and thus currently immeasurable) benefits of using no fertiliser.

For this reason, among the other reasons already presented, im leaning towards (with 20 mins left on the clock!) the no fertiliser option. We seem to have a clearer understanding of what will happen if we use fertiliser, so I'm inclined to use this project more as an experiment..even if that entails more risk

Well, we decided to do nothing and the spelt is looking very good on it. There is a smattering of weeds, but at the moment the spelt is outgrowing them and without N fertiliser, they (the weeds) will probably lose the race. So it is a case of waiting and seeing what happens next.

Meanwhile Tony Allen brought David Dent along to give the soil a thorough testing in four locations around the field, including a bulk density test, the result of which we await with interest. More on this elsewhere.

To complement the YEN soil tests that @danielkindred organised, Richard the agronomist took some tissue samples (ie spelt leaves) and sent them to NRM. The results are just in and posted below.

Very exciting to hear that the spelt is making progress without N fertiliser! Still early days but I like what I'm hearing. :)

Re: the tissue samples sent to the NRM, do you have any insight into what exactly these results mean? I.e. how do these results fare with previous tests, 'average' scores etc. I see most nutrients are in the 'normal' range, with q few being excessive (Molybdenum) and others (Nitrogen and Sulphur) being deficient. How do you interpret that, and how do you correct these extremes?

To be honest , I don't know much about tissue tests. They are a snapshot in time from a randomly selected plant, so could mean anything. We'll do another in a week or two and see if there's a pattern. There should be a correlation with the soil test if they are to mean anything, time tell. A lot of the extremes would be hard to correct on their own. Anything's possible, but is it worth it...
Meanwhile here's a pic from yesterday. Ear emerging from boot. Crop still only a foot high. Needs more rain!

thanks for the photo @johncherry - grown lots since we visited a few weeks ago!! Really appreciate these updates :)

Spelt is growing away nicely. Now about 3 foot tall. Sky lark nest to add colour.

The spelt is ripening rapidly and should be ready to combine later this week, weather permitting. This leads us to our next set of questions for everyone to ponder: what to do next.

There is no real point in trying to sell the crop until it is in the shed and we know how much there is of it and how nice it is (ie how much protein/gluten etc there is, in terms of suitability for milling/baking). That being said, we still need a plan. We estimate the yield will be something like 1tonne/acre, which gives us 20 odd tonnes to play with. We'd like to keep some back for planting next year, the rest is up to you...

We haven't spent that much of your money this year, it has been a very cheap crop to grow. Whether we would have much more out there if we'd fertilised it and sprayed a fungicide, we'll never know. A lot of the crops planted this spring haven't really come to much as we had a prolonged dry spell when we wanted rain and rain when we wanted dry (like now for harvest). That's farmers for you, always complaining. It's perhaps too early to say what the right thing to do was, whatever, it has been very interesting. I'll leave it to the number-crunchers to work out your returns, a lot will depend on how successful we are in marketing the spelt.

The next question is really whether you all want to carry on with the same field and grow different crops through the rotation. The field needs a break next year, so it won't have a grain crop in (unless you fancy risking a crop of buckwheat or quinoa or some-such 'false-grain' next spring...).
You may all want a change of scene and go elsewhere or invest your cash in something else, we just need to know quite soon; we'll likely put a cover crop in the field after harvest anyway which keeps the soil happy and most other options open.

Meanwhile I'd like to thank Tony Allan for arranging for David Dent to come and do a thorough soil density test in four different parts of the field. Alarmingly, David's conclusions were that the soil is compacted and doesn't have enough air in it for optimal growing conditions. I've had a word with the worms and basically told them to work harder. I'd rather they did the de-compacting, much cheaper and longer lasting than pulling metal implements through the profile.

John

I tried (and failed) to post a couple of snaps of crop since the rain. There are a lot of weeds coming through now, as well as the cover/trefoil companion crop. If we don't get to harvest the spelt soon, the greenery will be problematic. I could suggest that we treat the crop with a pre-harvest dose of Roundup (aka glyphosate) to kill off the greenery, but that might be too much of a wind-up.

Thanks so much for sharing @johncherry ! whaf would you do in this scenario without our influence at all? Would you spray with glyphosate? And who or how might you sell it? Fingers crossed for a few consistent days with no rain!!

Very many thanks John for finding time to write a very informative message in you inimitable way that conveys essentials briefly with compelling humour. It is all hugely appreciated. Many thanks also for mentioning the reports on the soil of OurField completed on 10 June by David Dent. We should discuss whether/how to share and comment on the soil survey information.

The yield estimate looks useful.

I agree with Abby that we hear from you on:
1 What you would do without our 'decisions'
and
2 I would like to hear the case for glysophate. I sense the group may not be up to speed on the weed challenges. I know, as you do, that other leading UK farmer exponents of no till feel they have to rely on small and well timed use of glysophate.

Do confirm when you intend to harvest the spelt?

And good luck with the marketing. As you hint handling this task is commercially crucial.

In answer to your question @abbyrose, we would probably grown some spring wheat as we have other fields growing it nearby and we'd have sprayed it and given it 100kg/N/Ha and sold it through our local farmers grain co-op. I can ask them if they've got a spelt buyer.

I don't think spraying glyphosate on the crop now would be a good idea, I suggested it as a tease. It's probably too late now, a lot of the spelt is ripe (with dead leaves) so the chemical would just stay on the ear which we want to harvest and I think that is bad. We will try to harvest on a hot, dry day so the weeds don't block the combine's innards. If the wet weather comes back and the weeds continue to grow, we might have to consider spraying diquat which will scorch the leaves, but not necessarily kill the root, and enable us to harvest a couple of days later. Glyphosate can take up to 3 weeks to work.

You are right @johnanthonyallan that we have to use some herbicides at least with our current no-till system, but we are experimenting every year with techniques to reduce pesticide use. We no longer use insecticides and the blossoming of insect life is palpable, together with the increase in bird numbers (slightly higher up the food chain). Spraying the crop just prior to harvest is one of the first sprays we should be giving up. And I hope we never have to do it (spray, I mean, not giving up...). Glyphosate spraying just before we sow the crop strikes me as the way to go.

Thank you John for the reply providing the additional information on weeds and pests. Let's pray for a few hot days. It would be useful to inform the group about the weed and herbicide issue. Could we ask Amir Kassam to say how the UK is doing compared with the global no-till story?
I think Abby was asking what you would do next rather than what you would have done on the field this year. As a suggestion for what next - what about sowing a leguminous cover crop?

@johncherry thank you so much for the update. My Dad has also been furiously combining at home in between awful rainy spells!

It sounds like a pre-harvest glyphosate spray is out, but will it be possible to combine the spelt this week with all the weeds? Do keep us updated.

I think it is time for us to discuss what options we have for marketing/ selling our spelt crop! Keen to hear ideas from the rest of the collective..

@tamsynforsyth @harrygreenfield1 @darren4 @andreadibiagio @jamestickell @abbyrose @catherinearend @averilglencross @alfredlawrie @alexandrasexton @wendyalcock @harryboglione @lucybradley1 @emersoncsorba @christinelewis @shyamdesai @danielkindred @sebastianpowell @veronicalopesdasil1 @matteodv @edna @ellemcall @edibleutopia @sineadfenton @tamsynforsyth @seangifford @nikitagulhane @stevenjacobs @johnanthonyallan @karlschneider @veronicalopesdasil1 @christinelewis1 @sadhbhmoore @matthewshribman @romymiller @nikireynolds @tristramstuart @matthewshribman @stinewilhelmsen @tessatricks