CropTec wows visitors and exhibitors

CropTec 2014 had a positive reaction with visitors delighted by its mix of technical information and new technology on show and exhibitors impressed by the quality of the conversations they had.

“There was a relaxed atmosphere with no pushy sales talk and exhibitors made time to chat to me about my farming situation,” said one visitors.

“The seminars covered a good range of topics with excellent speakers. It's good to hear about the R&D going on in the background alongside the commercial aspects of crop protection technology,” said another.

Meanwhile the 110+ exhibitors welcomed the opportunity to have serious technical conversations with leading farmers. More than 70% of exhibitors rated the quality of visitor conversations as good or excellent.


Post event analysis shows that more than 85% of visitors plant to attend CropTec 2015, which is on the 24th and 25th November at the same venue – The East of England Showground, Peterborough. The number recommending a CropTec visit to friends or colleagues was nearly 90%.

Two thirds of the farmers attending the event were key decision makers and a third were farming areas of greater than 1,000 hectares.

“Many of the seminars were standing room only with visitors hungry for knowledge that would make a difference back on the farm,” said CropTec’s Technical Director Stephen Howe.

“The feedback from those visitors shows that CropTec has played a very valuable role in giving them the information they need to develop their businesses, while the exhibitors have been particularly impressed by the quality of enquiries they had.”

New thinking was the theme of the principal sponsor Adama, a company which sells more active ingredient crop protection products that anyone else in the world: “That well-known phrase ‘I’ve always done it this way’ should be banished from cropping circles in this country,” said Rob King, managing director of Adama UK. “The question should be: ‘What can I do differently – as a manufacturer, a distributor, agronomist or grower?

“UK crop protection manufacturers, distributors, agronomists and farmers need to take leading roles in innovation together. Manufacturers must develop novel products and solutions; agronomists should give more sophisticated advice in the field; and growers need to adapt to do things differently to keep irreplaceable actives in the armoury. Without them, arable farming will be almost impossible in some circumstances.”

Mr King’s theme was further explored in the Crop Protection seminar, sponsored by BASF, where Craig Morgan, Head of research at agronomy specialists Agrovista said “Undoubtedly some of the changes caused by new pesticide regulation and resistance to products will cause some major problems. But that mustn’t be viewed as all bad. The new thinking that those challenges will bring could mean we develop better ways of doing things than we do now. The UK has excellent crop research and development, and there is plenty of information out there. But the link between that R&D and in-field practice is not as strong as it could be.”

He pointed to a better understanding of drift, more targeted in-row herbicide applications and increased use of rotations as ways of maximising the effectiveness of chemicals and protecting them from further restrictions.

Many of the visitors to CropTec were excited by the potential of genetic technology in developing new ways of protecting crops and allowing them to deliver new foods, fibre and fuel. This excitement was crystalised in the Plant Breeding seminar, sponsored by Syngenta, where Dr Cristobal Uauy of the John Innes Centre compared current development in genetic technology to those in digital technology 30 years ago.

“Imagine yourself in 1980. If someone said that a college student could write a software that could run an application on a telephone that could be used anywhere and downloaded by anyone in the world, you would probably have laughed at them. But jump forward a few years and it is likely that a geneticist will unveil a piece of chemical software that runs on living cells and can create a new enzyme or product. Genetic technology is becoming more powerful and affordable all the time and it is important we keep that sense of urgency to unlock DNA’s full potential.”

Affordability of technology is more important than ever, with growers facing with tumbling commodity prices this year which have hit profitability and shifted attention to the cost of production. Many CropTec visitors were looking at solutions that will maximise the value of inputs and save time or money.

This was a theme picked up by Roger Sylvester-Bradley and Daniel Kindred of ADAS in the Crop Nutrition seminar, sponsored by Yara, where they encouraged growers to use simple monitoring techniques to maximise the value of their nitrogen applications. They showed data which suggested that in some instances, a standard rate of nitrogen applied in a targeted way could deliver a higher yield than an application of an additional 60 kilograms per hectare that was not so targeted.

Managing with Precision was the theme of the last CropTec Seminar, sponsored by Vaderstad, with Simon Griffin of precision technology company SOYL discussed the potential of variable depth cultivation.

“The benefits of variable depth system can be enormous. Our trials have seen that compared to constant depth cultivation, variable depth can increase the speed of operations by more than 50%, while reducing fuel consumption by nearly 25%, giving a 30% reduction in the overall cost.”

CropTec attracted over 3,000 visitors and a date for next year’s event at the East of England Showground in Peterborough has already been announced – the 24th and 25th November 2015.