Barley yields rise as spot prices struggle

For, while the crops looked reasonable considering the sort of spring in which they were sown, both the yields and the quality have, so far been outstanding, particularly on the lighter ground where they can often disappoint.

But whether or not these factors will compensate for the appalling offers being made on the spot-price for any barley over and above what was sold on contract remains a bit of a moot point. For, with the quantity and quality which has been on offer, the only way the market seems to have been able to hit back is through the price.

While the nitrogen levels seem to have been very low across the board though, I had to put one of the results we got back on a sample down to a typo – because I’m not sure that you could actually get a 0.29% N barley.

It was good to get the last of this crop in the shed though, for although the early-cut crops looked bright and fresh the later ones, harvested only a few cutting days (admittedly longer in real time). After the earlier stuff were beginning to look a little grey and tired and I’m not sure if they would have stood up to too much more in the way of weathering.

Grab it while you can

So, with efforts being focused on what has been a bit of a grab it while you can harvest, there’s not been a lot of time to catch up with what’s going on in the wider arable world – but having said that I picked up on an article in the Financial Times calling for more support for the production of green fertiliser.

The call came from the head of Yara International, Svein Tore Holsether, who said that with fertiliser in puts accounting for about half the greenhouse gas emissions involved in making a loaf of bread, this figure could easily be cut.

He was of course pushing the company’s undertaking to produce what they term decarbonised ammonia which, sadly doesn’t seem to be created through some new less energy hungry process but rather through the simple expedient of using renewable sources – such as hydro electricity – to manufacture this key product in the production of fertilisers.

Green ammonia

Claiming that there was little in the way of government support within Europe for such a straightforward way of cutting emissions he said that this contrasted sharply with situation in the US. Holsether said that in the States, carrots such as cash incentives were being offered to drive forward the transition to green ammonia, while in Europe punitive regulations which see companies paying emission taxes if they don’t reduce their carbon footprints are being used as a stick to force commercial operations into line.

But as far as I can gather there doesn’t seem to be anything amazingly new about this greener fertiliser, it’s just the fact that the high energy requirements for producing the ammonia come from renewable resources rather than fossil ones - and a similar approach saw hydro electricity first being used in this way by one of Yara’s predecessors, Norsk Hydro, back in the early years of last century.

But a slightly more innovative approach also came to light in a publication by the UK’s Agri-Tech Centre which reported on work which, it stated, could result in cutting the amount of fertiliser used in producing our cereal crops by a half without compromising yield.

Titanium dioxide

The project aims to harness two separate findings. One involves (in what sound s like an expensive undertaking) spraying crops with specially processed titanium dioxide – a chemical which can use daylight to capture and convert nitrogen oxides (NOx) and convert these air pollutants directly into nitrates for use by the plants.The project’s lead claims that these small but continuous doses of nitrate add up to an average of 50kg N/ha across a growing season:

“Extensive independent trials have demonstrated a positive impact on crop productivity, with a 6% yield increase seen in cereals. Data also shows that the approach can decrease the need for synthetic nitrogen fertilisers by up to 25%.”

The process can also break down nitrous oxide (N2O), the main greenhouse gas associated with fertiliser use in crops which is 265 times more potent than CO2 giving a further boost to its green credentials: “Farmers could therefore utilise this technology to reduce net GHG emissions, making this a unique opportunity for farmers to help move towards their net zero emissions targets,” the report claimed, going on to point out that the net capture was equivalent to 5.4t of CO2 per hectare per year.

Friendly bacteria

But this in only half the story of their novel research – for while this part of the approach is already being adopted commercially in some sectors, recent experiments have identified a powerful opportunity to combine the photocatalyst technology with endophytes (the plant equivalent of Yakult’s friendly bacteria).

This would see the addition of nitrogen-fixing bacteria which can form a symbiotic relationship with plants to the mix and which can see the bugs capture atmospheric nitrogen and convert this into ammonia for the plant which in turn supplies carbon and other nutrients to the bacteria. Researchers are claiming that the synergistic boost offered by combining these two approaches farmers could achieve close to their normal yields while using only half the amount of bagged fertiliser – representing what they claim would be a ‘dream combination’ which offers growers not only a lower carbon footprint for their crops but also a £100/hectare reduction in costs.

We’ll wait and see if it ever becomes more than just a dream…