Insight Focus
- Hike in UK minimum beet price welcome but not seen as enough.
- Beet yield outlook higher after use of neonicotinoid treatments approved.
- Fertiliser costs remain the key issue, with alternative options still being considered.
What’s Happening on the Farm?
The minimum price we’ll receive for 2022/23 beet has been increased from 25/GBP tonne to 27 GBP/tonne (35 USD/tonne). Whilst welcomed, I can’t help but wonder if this is akin to closing the stable door after the horse has bolted. Today, the price would be circa 37 GBP/tonne.
Spring has come and with-it huge variation in temperature over a 24-hour period. This daily temperature swing is complicating pesticide and fertiliser applications.
Fuel prices have rocketed. Who would have thought I’d have to end up being a crude oil trader? With the long-term weather probabilities suggesting we’re in for a warmer/drier spring and early summer, we’re bringing our nitrogen applications forward. All winter crops have had their first treatment and we’ll soon be onto the second.
Having done our deep nitrogen soil cores, we calculate yield and nitrogen requirement basis expected yield.
What Stage Are Your Crops At?
The average temperature here has been a touch higher than normal, so our winter crops have continued to grow. Oilseed rape looks particularly forward, and wheat is well tillered.
The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs has granted the use of neonics on sugar beet seed, delaying the arrival of seed on farm but making cultivation potentially less risky.
What Are Your Biggest Concerns at Present?
With the war continuing in Ukraine, I worry about the UK’s response as far as agriculture is concerned.
France has recently granted EUR 400 million aid to its farmer. Meanwhile, the UK’s agriculture minister has promised to kick the tyres of agricultural reform to see if they’ll stay on and has solved the nitrogen issue by pointing out that there’s enough manure in the country, without nitrogen fertiliser, to fulfil all of agriculture’s requirements.
What Are You Doing Differently This Year?
We’re still trying to improve how we apply fertiliser. Fertiliser is very expensive, even when it’s technically ‘cheap’.
For more information on Czarnikow’s beet pricing tool, please contact CHargraves@czarnikow.com
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