A potato farmer, based on the outskirts of Forfar, Angus, is using the latest potato crop modelling technology to maximise his yield potential and ensure that more of his crop hits the correct specifications for his target markets.

Matthew Steel, director of Craignathro Farms near Forfar manages a 450 ha mixed farm, which grows combinable crops (including malting barley, feed wheat and oilseed rape) and has a free-range egg enterprise with 32,000 birds, as well as several renewable energy and environmental enterprises.

The farm also grows a wide range of potatoes. Most of these are ware crops, but Mr Steel also grows seed crops for export sales and on-farm use. This means the farm needs to produce different tuber size targets for its various customers.

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Last year Mr Steel began using Crop4Sight, a potato crop management platform, after a recommendation from his agronomist, although he had been aware of the system for several years before that.

“I first heard about Crop4Sight five years ago and last year Greenvale suggested that it could improve our crop management by providing us with more data and information,” he explains.

“By helping us to understand the crop physiology, and at what point crops would reach the optimum size distribution to maximise our economic return, we hoped the platform would help us to balance the risk of late harvests and increase our gross margin.”

Last year was the first full year of using the system and Mr Steel was particularly impressed by Crop4Sight’s accuracy on some of the seed potato crops grown for export.

“It was scarily accurate on some of the varieties. We grow seed for export to Egypt and the maximum tuber size is 55mm, so the fraction of the crop that is below that is worth a lot more than the oversize.

“Using the Crop4Sight model we grew the crop on slightly longer than we would normally have done and found that while we lost some tubers because they were too big, we had a much greater weight of smaller tubers below 55mm, so we had more tonnes in the saleable fraction than we would otherwise have had.”

Although Crop4Sight is available in app and web-based versions, Mr Steel lets his Greenvale agronomist produce recommendations based on what the platform tells them.

“I discuss what and when I’m planting, the tuber count and the intended market, and they send me back the recommended spacings,” he says.

“Before we just used to plant our seed at a set spacing based on what we’d done historically. Now we tailor our planting to maximise yield based on the date and the crop’s physiology. That means we’re now planting at some spacings that we would never have considered previously.

“We also tailor our tuber spacing according to when we want to harvest. We like to finish harvesting by mid-October, so depending on the planting date, we plant at slightly wider spacing if we want the crop to get to size quicker. Or if we have the luxury of more time, we plant closer together to try to get a bigger overall yield.”

He was so pleased with the results of using Crop4Sight last year that he is using it again this season.

“Although every season is unique, we’re doing what we did last year in terms of putting our data, such as tuber counts, into the model,” he says.

“Last year yields were above average and even though it was such a good growing season, I am sure some of that’s down to the changes that we implemented on the back of using Crop4Sight.

“It gives you data to help manage your crops better and it only takes a few tonnes of potatoes to pay for the service, so the return on investment is really good.

“Overall, the old adage that you can’t manage what you can’t measure is very true, and Crop4Sight is another tool to help us manage our crops better.”