Farming: Down on the strategic cereal farm

Scotland’s cereal farmers will have an opportunity to visit the country’s first Strategic Cereal Farm later this month – and catch up on the past two years’ worth of the research work which has been underway since shortly after Covid struck in 2019.

On Wednesday 29 June the trial sites at Treaton farm, part of Balbirnie Home Farms, Fife, who are hosting AHDB’s Strategic Cereal Farm Scotland will give farmers from across the country an introduction to the farm and research which began in autumn 2020.

Farm manager David Aglen, of Balbirnie Home Farms, said the early part of the project had been confined to the virtual world.

“This resulted in a series of films and webinars to showcase what we have been doing and report on the results of the initial trials,” said Aglen.

He added that all involved were looking forward to finally being able to show people around the trial sites in person and engage directly with peers about what had been learned and what was yet to be investigated.

The open day kicks off at 1pm with an introduction to AHDB’s Strategic Farm network from Fiona Geary, knowledge transfer manager at AHDB.

Geary said the event gave an opportunity to provide an overview of the trials being carried out in Scotland alongside AHDB’s network of Strategic Cereal Farms.

And she added that work on the farm had focused on conducting a series of trials conducted under Scottish growing conditions, with the aim of developing a strategy toward environmental and economic resilience.