BBRO BeetCast

With so many tillage choices, how do you ensure you have made the right choice for your soil, the conditions and your crop? BBRO are investigating these implications at Holkham Farming with interesting results.

With a high Virus Yellows forecast and aphids expected around the 10th April we look at mitigation strategies to help growers protect the crop in 2024.

We join Simon Bowen and Stephen Aldis at a Drill Operators training day, to hear the latest info on improving crop population, establishment and ultimately yield through good preparation and drilling. We also meet with 5 drill manufacturers; Grimme, Kverneland, Kuhn, Monosem and Vaderstad.

As many experienced harvester drivers will tell you there is a lot more to harvesting a good beet crop than you'd think. We spend some time in the cab with a new driver and carry out a harvester test to really put him through his paces - will he pass muster?!

First podcast of 2024. We look at a frequent grower question received during the 2023 campaign. Walking through the collection of data process at British Sugar with Perry Bateman and then hearing from Simon Bowen regarding some of the potential influences to low sugars and higher impurities.

Quite a few growers are using or considering the use of cover crops, but getting the species mix is only one consideration, you also need to plan for destruction particularly where followed by sugar beet. Roger Bradbury, sugar beet lead for Bayer Cropscience and Dr Georgina Barratt (BBRO) discuss the use of glyphosate.

Whilst weather stopped play, for trials harvesting the BBRO team took some well earned time out and visited Beet Europe in France, and came home with a wish list.

We visit one of the BBRO trial sites to see the impact of Virus Yellows on varieties available for drilling in 2024 and also discuss some of the exciting findings regarding new material being tested for future use.

Many of us have stood mesmerised at agricultural shows watching a robotic display and wondering if they have a place on the farm. Well Sentry Farming have partnered with Autonomous Agri Solutions and BBRO to test the theory in a commercial sugar beet field. We meet those involved to see how things have worked out in the first year of trial.

With the sugar beet seed order being imminent, we discuss what to look for in variety traits and how to use this knowledge to shape your choices for the 2024 crop.

The crop is now surging ahead with good canopy cover across much of the growing region. With this in mind we look to our fungicide programmes to ensure the canopy remains healthy to optimise yield potential.

Catch up with the topics of conversation following our May BeetField events.

As we enter May the first of the aphids are known to be in flight, so as they launch so do we by commencing the aphid survey. This year monitoring is ramped up with 12 special monitoring sites.

In March British Sugar issued a new early lifting beet contract, as a response to the reduction in supply from the 2023 campaign. Dan Green explains the detail behind this initiative.

Sugar beet drills will soon be emerging into the daylight as preparations get under way for the 2023 sugar beet season. Dr Simon Bowen and Stephen Aldis provide a few pointers to getting the crop underway.

Meet Newark growers, Ed and Tom Hammond who have taken a holistic view to growing beet. Ensuring sustainability of the soil through cover crop use and careful management, leading to a reduction of inputs.

With a number of growers looking to increase their sugar beet contracts we catch up with some young growers to find out why they want to grow the crop and we also find out what's happening in the BBRO plant clinic.

Whilst many may hope to find a trip to Disneyland Florida hanging from their Christmas tree, our intrepid traveller and sugar beet enthusiast Dr Alistair Wright found the Disney of his dreams during a recent trip to Fargo, the sugar beet capital of the USA.

A bit of preparation now could reap rewards in future; particularly if you take a close look at your soil health. Simon and Georgina provide some helpful hints and guidance to the AHDB Soil Health Scorecard.

Whilst the crop has recovered well from drought, issues such as Beet Moth or cracked roots could expose the crop to secondary infection. Prof Mark Stevens explains what to watch out for.

An early release of the September edition of BeetCast to support growers in making those important variety choices we speak to some of the breeders about their seed portfolios.

With the sugar beet harvest due to start in a few weeks, we remind growers to keep an eye on canopies as they recover from drought. Checking for disease and nutrient deficiencies in order to keep the canopy as healthy as possible to maximise yield potential.

It has been a very busy few weeks in the BBRO laboratory checking through numerous yellow water pan samples assessing aphid numbers and now testing for levels of virus. Prof Mark Stevens explains the results so far and expected impact.

Mike May, Chairman of the RL Board joins Dr Simon Bowen to discuss the RL and how assessing your current sugar beet crop can help in determining the best variety choices for your soil type and management programme in future.

With the crop underway we join Martin Stuffens, Farm Manager of Park Farm, Thorney to discuss the BBRO trial site that he is hosting and how his crops are faring so far this season.