Sustainable Systems

Organic Oilseed Rape Production in Scotland

Organically grown oilseed rape is not a crop typically associated with the UK, and certainly not in Scotland. However, this has all started to change over the last few years based around the experiences of a small group of farmers and other stakeholders, with the first commercial crops having been grown mostly in NE Scotland over the last three seasons.

Acquiring Land Through Contract or Share Farming Agreements

In this video in our series looking at advice and guidance for people who want to make a new start with agriculture, we’re talking contract and share farming agreements. What…

Forage for Profit – Spring Forage Crops

The Forage for Profit Discussion Group are a group of beef and sheep producers based in South West Scotland with a common desire to improve business profitability through improved utilisation…

Podcast: Thrill of The Hill – Flock Resilience

While a Brexit trade deal has taken some pressure off the sheep sector the changing political and agricultural landscape means that it must adapt to the new challenges of climate…

Cropcast: Winter cereal disease management

In this episode of Cropcast we’re talking about winter cereal disease management with Prof Fiona Burnett, Peter Lindsay and Dr Neil Havis.

The Role of Biostimulants in IPM

The overriding principle of IPM is to manage the health of a crop holistically, rather than just to focus on individual pests and disease and then deal with them with single tools in isolation. We are used to the concept that we might try and combine interventions like rotation, tillage, varietal resistance with targeted pesticides to reduce pest and disease pressure, but the concept of trying to work with and stimulate the plants own natural processes using biostimulants is newer and less well understood.