It’s not all about cultivations. In fact where cultivations are concerned our belief is ‘less is more’, or ‘tillage begets tillage’. Once you till, you need to till more and more over time, to create the same effect. As you do so you are oxidising the carbon out of the soil. This precious atom which is the fundamental basis of all life, and the basis of your soil fertility and productivity.
We focus on getting the soil chemistry ‘balanced’ for better structure, better input use efficiency and more consistent output. We start with basic soil test results which you probably already have and then use this information to lead us to areas where we may need more in-depth soil analysis.
Restore porosity and aggregate stability to the soil to allow greater water and air movement within the soil will in turn provide a habitat that the biology will want to inhabit. It’s that simple. However, the chemical balance of the soil is crucial to achieving this.
As we continue to ‘mine’ our soils it become apparent that crop nutrition is not just about N, P & K. In our drive for sustainable farming and healthier crops and soils we need to ensure they are adequately nourished.
Is what we offer. We are not a traditional agronomy company, we can give you as much input as you require in any of the following topics wile working alongside your existing advisor who can deal with the usual day-to-day agronomy requirements. We find this works well where everyone is aligned and working towards the same goal.
We now offer a full agronomy service. Paul Cawood is based in the north east of England and offers a full agronomy package based on a acreage fee paying service. Paul is fully independent and able to advise customers on reduced cultivations, no-till and soil management alongside the usual crop walking and recommendation agronomy service. Paul has been advising farmers for over 20 years, prior to this he worked with a field trials company. Contact Paul on paul.cawood@soilfirstfarming.co.uk or via the contact us page.
Conservation Agriculture (CA) is a systems approach which puts the soil, and carbon management at centre of the system. Regenerative systems are based upon some similar principles.
The principles of CA are;
Generally minimum soil disturbance refers to the absolute minimum you can get away with, yet still establish a productive crop. In reality this means no-till. No-till can be a very cheap and effective method of crop establishment. It doesn’t even require an expensive drill, it may be possible to adapt a drill you already own or can readily acquire.
The use of c
In nature it is very rare to see bare soil, especially in our temperate climate where rainfall tends to exceed evaporation. New growth simply covers the soil very quickly.
There are two main reasons why, as farmers, we need to weary of leaving soil uncovered;
By utilising cover crops where practicable, and by chopping nadn accurately spreading all crop residues.
Soil carbon is soil fertility, bare soils cost fertility. Cover crops and residues help return carbon and therefore fertility to the soil.
Speaks for itself really, this may mean widening the rotation, it could mean the use of cover and catch crops at points in the rotation. It may mean mixed species cropping. What is apparent is the once we start introducing greater diversity into the rotation the effects are greater than the sum of their parts.