Grow the future

In this episode, Ken Rundle talks to Natalie Wood, Yara's Agronomy Manager to learn about a new crop nutrition planning tool being launched by Yara to help farmers tackle their nutrient management decisions.

As another season comes to an end, Giz Gaskin Yara's fruit specialist discusses the role of biostimulants on fruit crops and reviews the results of this season's trials on several fruit farms across the country. Particularly how biostimulants can help the plants increase their vigour and better resist various stresses.  Giz also discusses the results of trials testing a new way to manage iron deficiency in fruit crops.

As growers face challenges caused by the current hiatus in the fertiliser markets,  Philip Cosgrave Yara's Grassland Specialist discusses how livestock farmers can adapt their nutrient management plans to grow  forage as efficiently as possibly by making the best use of fertilisers and organic manures.

The fertiliser market is dramatic, to say the least at present. Many growers have questions about what's going on and wondering what they should do.  So in this episode, Ken Rundle talks to Mark Tucker, Yara UK Head of Marketing and Agronomy and Natalie Wood Yara's chief arable agronomist, to discuss the reasons behind market volatility and to ask how growers should adapt their fertiliser programmes to manage costs while still maximising the economic returns.

At this time of year, brassica crops are in the ground and approaching maturity, so this is a good time to think about nutrition options to improve quality at harvest.  In this episode, Ken Rundle talks to Tom Decamp, Yara's Field Vegetable Specialist to discuss top dressing options for brassica growers for targetting quality premiums with tips on fertiliser selection and timing of application.

Recent podcasts have concentrated on the major nutrients N, P and K but this time the focus moves to micronutrients such as Mg, Mn, Zn, Cu, Mo and B. In this episode, Yara agronomist Natalie Wood talks to Ken Rundle about the role of micronutrients crop establishment and reminds us that they are no less important than other nutrients despite being needed in relatively lower levels. 

Potassium is often overlooked as a nutrient but is just as important and should not be forgotten.  Potassium is fundamental for plant water uptake and regulation, which affects the ability of plants to resist diseases and tolerate drought stress as well as influencing the uptake of other nutrients and nutrient use efficiency.  So in this episode, Ken Rundle talks to agronomist Ian Matts from the Potash Development Association to find out why potassium is so important to plants and to discuss best practices for growers to manage potash applications.

Because of recent volatile nutrient prices, some growers may be questioning phosphate and potash applications.  So in this episode, Ken Rundle talks to Mark Tucker, Yara UK Head of Agronomy, to ask the reasons behind this volatility and find out how growers should adapt their fertiliser programmes to manage costs but avoid damaging soil fertility or losing yield.

As legislators turn their attention to soil health, Jon Telfer Yara's Analytical Services manager talks about why healthy soil biology soil is more important than ever and discusses the benefits of conducting a full soil heath analysis rather than just the basic soil test. Then more important than conducting the test is to act on the results to ensure the soil is left in better health for the future.

In this episode, Ken Rundle talks to Professor Roger Sylvester-Bradley from The Yield Enhancement Network (YEN). Discussing how data, collected, shared and analysed by farmers, agronomists and researchers is increasing our knowledge of how to drive up yields in a sustainable way.