There’s an ocean between the United Kingdom’s Lincolnshire wheat fields and Southern Ontario, but the farmers can still learn from each other.
Mark Stubbs, a third-generation farmer from Louth, Lincolnshire, recently shared his take on improved wheat yields at Southwest Agriculture Conference in Ridgetown, emphasizing the importance of organic matter.
Over the past decade, Stubbs has increased his soil’s organic matter from one to 10 per cent by using cover crops and poultry manure. His cultivation methods include a disc-tine cultivator and a nine-metre drill with 12.5-centimetre spacings. Stubbs stated that he achieved a yield of 16.5 tonnes per hectare (235 bushels per acre) in 2023.
Why it matters: UK farming practices, such as pairing cover crops with poultry manure, could help improve wheat yields in Canada.
Located in the Lincolnshire Wolds, Stubbs’ farm has a clay-loam soil layer atop a chalk base.
“We’re only working in six inches of soil,” he explained.
Although the soils are clay-based, they are viable, and the chalk foundation ensures the topsoil is well-drained. Being situated above an aquifer allows crops to wick moisture from below during dry periods.
Nearly two decades ago, Stubbs began using cover crops and poultry manure to help improve soil quality.
“What I found by mixing the manures and the cover crops together was we are able to get a really good breakdown,” he said.
Today, he aims for 10 percent organic matter, using a disc tine cultivator or disc ripper running approximately about 76 millimetres deep.
“I do that just to loosen up the soil a little bit, because I find on my soil, direct drilling doesn’t work very well at all,” Stubbs explained. “I just like to get the soil moving and get all the bacteria and the microbes and all sorts of things moving about in the soil.”
He then follows up with a nine-metre-wide drill spaced at 12-and-a-half cm, targeting 500 plants per square metre. That higher plant density is one of his primary recommendations.
“Do this by reducing row width to nearly (13 cm) or by using your present drill and cross-drill by doing two passes of 250 seeds per metre square,” he advised.
He cautioned that it only works if there’s adequate moisture available for the crop. Dryer areas are likely planting at more than (25 cm) or greater spacing, because that’s what works under local conditions, he said.
“If you try to go narrow and [put] in more plants, there are more plants scavenging for that little bit of water. You’re going to end up with small, spindly plants,” he said.
Keep it clean
His weed management plan includes using a 36-metre boom sprayer for liquid fertilizer, along with measures to mitigate pests and diseases.
“Scorching can be a problem if I’m going on a hot, sunny day, so we aim to try to go when it’s a miserable day,” he said. “But if it’s going to be hot and we don’t get there, we’ll maybe even do it through the night rather than in the day to try and stop the scorch on the plant.”
Controlling the pH level is also essential for maximizing yields, he said, noting that the ideal range is between seven and 7.5. Poultry manure helps achieve that target because it’s high in sulphur and lowers pH levels.
The soil naturally contains high levels of potassium, but Stubbs suspects that poultry manure increases the nutrient’s plant-availability for the crops, which doesn’t appear to occur without it.
“I find that using the poultry manure slightly unlocks that,” he said.
Stubbs takes a zero-insecticide approach to crop management, choosing to use cover crops and manure instead.
No respect
Stubbs said more ideal Canadian growing conditions, particularly in the Ridgetown area, allow for maximum growth in the month of June, while in the U.K. wheat begins to “shut down.”
He said rainfall in recent years has been unusually high in this region of Canada, which helped keep plants growing.
He suggested that Canadian farmers should not see wheat as “poverty grass” but should give it the same consideration as more economically valuable crops.
“In some of your fertile areas, if you treat the wheat the same as you’re treating your corn and give it the same respect,” he theorized. “You could get yields within (1.7 tonnes) of what you’re getting for corn yields.”
He also noted that the quality of Ontario wheat production was higher than what’s grown in his part of the U.K.
“Mine’s only going into the feed market,” he said, but in Canada, a willingness to experiment could reap financial rewards.
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