Morley Farms in Norfolk hosts cutting-edge crop research

Morley Farms, near Wymondham, was named as the new AHDB Strategic Cereal Farm East last year - one of only four in the country.

And this month it held a meeting to discuss the first 12 months of the six-year partnership with the Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board.

Farmers discussed crop trials at Morley Farms near Wymondham as part of the AHDB Strategic Cereal Farm project (Image: Chris Hill) The initiative aims to demonstrate field-scale research and innovation in a commercial farming environment – and engaging with other farmers in the process.

Morley Farms manager David Jones said the project was "right up our street, because we are trying to bridge the gap between science and practical farming". But he added that all decisions also had to ensure the farm remained "sustainable and profitable".

Profits from the 700ha commercial arable farm help fund the Morley Agricultural Foundation (TMAF), which spends around £500,000 per year in grants for research projects and PhD studies, and hosts a huge range of trial plots for organisations including NIAB (National Institute of Agricultural Botany), the John Innes Centre and the British Beet Research Organisation (BBRO).

Mr Jones said the new Strategic Farm trials fell under three "work packages" - exploring non-chemical ways to control Italian rye-grass weeds, managing barley yellow dwarf virus (BYDV) through smarter, reduced insecticide applications, and asking if nitrogen use efficiency (NUE) can reduce traditional fertiliser usage without damaging yields.

Common themes from the first year included the challenges of the wet weather, but although some trials did not go exactly as planned, several observations were reported back to farmers.

A Garford interrow hoe has been trialled at Morley Farms in Norfolk (Image: NIAB) On the topic of rye-grass, NIAB research trials agronomist Jack Poulden said mechanical weed control machines such as an interrow hoe and a "Weedsurfer" had offered some non-chemical options, but timing was critical with a "narrow window of opportunity".

And he said soil seedbank sampling is a useful - albeit labour-intensive - tool to gain invaluable insights on management decisions.

Counting rye-grass weeds in a wheat field at Morley Farms (Image: NIAB)

In the first year of Strategic Farm trials, when few weeds were found above ground,  seedbank samples were collected to assess how much of the weed problem lay buried in the soil. Samples were put in a polytunnel, where sprinklers were used to create a "semi-controlled environment" to encourage plant growth for analysis.

Mr Poulden said: "This year we found no rye-grass on the surface, but we need to consider what the natural population is below ground – that is where the weeds are, they cannot have just disappeared.

"So we did soil seedbank sampling. It is a really simple and basic idea to determine what your challenge below ground is – and where it is. If you can identify which areas or which soil depths have that higher proportion, then you have a really interesting piece of data there.

"Actually keeping those seeds beneath the surface to rot away or die off is still a really valuable and useful management tool."

Meanwhile Dr Duncan Coston, senior consultant at agricultural consultancy ADAS, spoke about efforts to halt aphids carrying BYDV, a yield-robbing disease of cereal crops.

He said trials are comparing the yield performance of two different wheat varieties– one susceptible to BYDV and the other tolerant - as well as measuring the abundance of aphids and their natural insect predators, and assessing the impact of going "insecticide free".

He said the 2023/24 season was a low-pressure year for the disease, and the weather meant fields were not accessible when aphid flight was predicted. Low aphid numbers were observed on sticky traps, and further exploration of yield data is still to be done, he added.

David Clarke at NIAB updated the meeting on research into optimising nitrogen use efficiency, saying the first year of data "makes trends difficult to identify", but additional years will "allow the merits of variable nitrogen applications to be assessed".