Keep trying – there’s still scope to improve performance – that was the message delivered to arable farmers visiting West Midlands Potato Day held earlier this month on the Staffordshire/Shropshire border.

Neither potato farmers nor cereal growers are achieving crop yields anywhere near their current potential according to professor Ian Crute, the key note speaker at the Potato Council-organised event at Woodlands Farm, Weston under Lizard which is managed by Douglas McGowan on behalf of Harnage Estates for the owner Lord Bradford.

“If we are to achieve these yields and obtain reductions in our carbon footprint , farmers must get better at translating scientific knowledge into practical agriculture . There’s a lot of yield to be got,” the professor said.

“We must put the power of genomics to work.GM has the potential, as has clearly been demonstrated, to control weeds by herbicide-tolerant potato crops, and to produce crops with resistance to insect pests and nematodes.

“Potato plants resistant to blight potato have been around for 20 years. Instead of leaving them on the shelf we should have had them as commercial varieties by now,” he said.

Whilst dismissing organic farming as the only sustainable model for the future, he said there are good lessons to be learnt from organic production, for example on soil management.

“But farming is not a blue print, it does not seem sensible to be prepared to lose a crop simply because you are not prepared to use a particular chemical,” he said.

Out on the potato field, expert agronomists and water management consultants emphasised the need not just for irrigation but to know how much was needed to reduce soil deficit to acceptable levels before you irrigate. Heavier, less frequent applications were probably right on heavier land but not on lighter, shallower soils.

Wind blow resulted in a considerable reduction in the efficiency of spray irrigation, whilst night irrigation was little better than irrigating in the day.

Water stress, said agronomist Dennis Buckley, is the main reason yields fall behind their potential. Water meters are important to judge this but so too is the traditional spade.

Research is showing that the use of mustard crops on fields prior to potato planting can reduce nematode and eelworm levels.

By Keith Stevens