GrowHow Advice hits the spot
The response from farmers to the Arable GrowHow Advice service, launched by Kemira GrowHow at the Cereals event in June, has exceeded all expectations.
"We are now providing crop nutrition advice through the GrowHow Advice package on over 35,000 hectares of arable crops with participating farmers coming from all parts of the country," says GrowHow Advice manager Clive Deeley.
GrowHow Advice farmer Murray Brown, who farms 1,400 acres in Northamptonshire and Buckinghamshire, suggests that many farmers are probably signing up for peace of mind. "With increasing legislation many are finding it difficult to keep up with all the associated rules and regulations. With the GrowHow Advice package you know that you will have access to all the latest information on what can and can't be done and you can be sure that you have all the records you need for NVZ compliance and Farm Assurance inspectors," he adds.
But GrowHow Advice is much more than just keeping up with regulations. The focus is on making sure farmers get the best value from the fertilisers they buy. Mr Brown has worked with Kemira GrowHow for a number of years and the new service package is really a formalisation of much of the service he had already been receiving. "My reasons for signing up to GrowHow Advice were more complex. Yes, the access to advice and the reassurance that I'm doing things right is worthwhile but, more importantly, both financially and environmentally I need to be sure that the fertiliser I'm putting on is what the crop needs and no more. It makes no sense at all to apply fertiliser that's not needed."
The Kemira GrowHow N-Min testing service, which measures the amount of residual N in the soil and likely to become available to the crop, is used on both the Brackley and Aylesbury farms. "Last year the test showed plenty of residual N so we applied less fertiliser than we had originally planned," he says. The benefit was clear when it came to harvest. Heavy rains caused many crops to lodge but Mr Brown's wheat remained largely standing. "We just had the odd slight overlap where you could see that too much N had been applied and the crop fell over," he explains.
A choice of two levels of GrowHow Advice service are offered both built around the company's exclusive crop nutrition software called EnCompass. EnCompass calculates field specific Nitrogen and Sulphur recommendations as well as balancing P & K off-takes or building P & K reserves. It includes nutrient removal in its calculations and takes full account of the nutrient value of manures. The resulting recommendations provide a comprehensive set of field records for NVZ compliance and farm assurance schemes. EnCompass is compatible with other major farm software packages. The whole GrowHow Advice system achieved the international quality standard ISO 9001:2000 in October.
