Join Nick and Tim in a very dry third week of April to talk honestly about the realities of growing crops in a drought.
They dive into:
- Current UK conditions in the Cotswolds, Worcestershire, Herefordshire, Kent and the East – “biscuit dry” soils, wind, and high transpiration.
- Nitrogen management gone wrong – including a frank critique of heavy liquid N use, leaf scorch, and why nitrogen without a full nutrient program is “wasting money.”
- Intelligent farming vs salesman farming – how to stop letting product reps run your business and start making your own informed decisions.
- Balanced nutrition and disease control – using blends, amino acids (Citadel), calcium, silicon, phosphorus, magnesium, molybdenum, manganese, zinc and potassium to build resilience and keep yellow rust at bay.
- Crop-by-crop strategy – practical foliar plans for winter wheat, spring barley, oats, beans and a very promising oilseed rape crop in a dry season.
- Economics and fuel costs – whether it ever makes sense to cut back passes, and why big cultivations and harvest fuel use will really bite this year.
- Bigger picture – grain prices stuck around £175/t, input inflation, solar on arable land, politics, Clarkson, Cereals, and whether a global farmer organisation could ever work.
If you’re farming in a dry spring, questioning your nitrogen strategy, or fed up with prescription agriculture driven by sales targets, this episode is packed with grounded, field-tested insight – and a fair bit of straight talking.