‘Phenomenal’ results from BlueN for sugar beet farmer
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Sam Myhill of MB Farming Ltd used biostimulants for the first time last year and is now a convert after seeing yield increases of 29% in his trial.
He turned to the market-leading BlueN™ to help his sugar beet navigate the risks presented by a difficult year with extreme weather conditions.
BlueN is a nutrient efficiency biostimulant containing a naturally occurring bacteria, Methylobacterium symbioticum, that fixes nitrogen from the air and converts it into ammonium inside the plant.
“Quite a lot of our sugar beet last year was on some really heavy land,” says Sam. “And it traditionally struggles to get enough nitrogen out of the soil throughout the season. That’s probably partially due to the soil type, as we have a lot of clay content.”
MB Farming Ltd contract farms blocks of land across East Anglia for a range of landlords, with varying soil types and rotations. One farm in the business encompasses 55ha of sugar beet as part of a six-year rotation including oilseed rape, wheat and winter and spring barley. BlueN was applied to some whole fields, and to several 24m strips across one of their landlord’s farms.
After months of rainfall, Sam decided to try something new to help the sugar beet get away.
“They were planted into quite muddy and cold seed beds, so we wanted to give them the best boost we could to get them growing,” he explains.
Sam usually applies the total crops liquid nitrogen requirements to the seedbeds of the sugar beet.
“If you use granular nitrogen, you’d probably apply some when the crop was out too,” he explains. “But as we’re using liquid, the risk applying it when the plant is so delicate is that you may scorch the leaf. So, we put it all in the seedbed, and before the land is ploughed, we usually apply pig muck, which provides some background nutrition.”
Sam’s first foray into biological products delivered a noticeable, visual difference.
“We saw a benefit throughout the growing season,” he shares. “We could actually see that the tops of the sugar beet were green and noticeably fuller. The bigger leaves meant that they had more of an area to photosynthesise.
“Overall, the plants were much bigger and much stronger. The field was treated exactly the same as the others, the only difference was that we applied BlueN – we could even see the difference along the line where the sprayer had been.
“The visual difference was great because it meant we could show it to our landlords – they don’t want to be trawling through data, they want to see a return on their investment.
“We could show them that the crop was stronger, much bigger, much healthier, and that has now been reflected in the data.”
BlueN was applied at a rate of 0.333kg per ha to 24m trial strips in a range of different fields and soil types from heavy Beccles series clay to sandy loam.
A clean fresh yield increase of 28% and slight increase in sugar content resulted in an overall 29% increase in adjusted yield.
After taking into account the £30 per ha cost of applying BlueN, the Margin Over Input Cost worked out at +£1,239 per hectare.
“The yield map from the harvester showed that, when used across a larger area, we didn’t quite reach the results achieved in the trial,” Sam says. “But we did see an increase and noted an obvious visual difference to the crop, so we’re looking forward to using BlueN across a larger area next year.
“Our landlords are keen for us to try new products and move away from using artificial fertiliser all the time, whilst remaining profitable and sustainable,” adds Sam.
“As a business we’re willing to adopt new ideas rather than being stuck in the old ways. We’re seeing new challenges in farming and the price of nitrogen is up and down all the time, so we’re keen to explore how biostimulants can help us.
“We will use BlueN on a large proportion of the sugar beet area this year, but potentially still leave some areas untreated, just so we can see the difference.
“Then our landlords will be able to clearly see the benefit again and know that it’s working.
“I’ve been really impressed and wouldn’t hesitate to recommend it to other farmers.”
How to use Nutrient Efficiency Biostimulant BlueN™ on sugar beet
Sam Myhill of MB Farming Ltd
Read more about Sam as he turned to a market-leading biostimulant to help his sugar beet mitigate the risks presented by this year’s challenging conditions.