HarvestLab 3000: New CROP INSIGHTS

8 Sept 2022

Watch on YouTube

This is a YouTube video titled "HarvestLab 3000: New CROP INSIGHTS" containing a monologue or presentation from September 8, 2022, discussing a precision agriculture project involving protein content analysis in milling wheat across variable soil types in South Oxfordshire. The speaker explains the use of technology and collaboration with partners like John Deere to optimize fertiliser application and crop yield quality.

I got involved with Harvest Lab because we've been doing this project with Reading University and a number of other countries in Europe looking at protein content in our milling wheat. We're 1,000 hectares situated in South Oxfordshire between the Thames and the Chilterns. We're on very variable soil type ranges from sort of clay cap through to gravel with a little bit of river silt. Mostly quite poor. So we've got one field that's got 17 different soil types in it. So it is a bit of a challenge. Precision agriculture makes sense in that we've put the right amount of fertiliser in the right place to produce a more even crop. It's not about saving money on inputs, it's about evening up the yield, which then that brings up some adjustments we can make to the system so that we can analyse each load as it comes off the combine, which we could then put into separate bins. So a low protein and a higher protein bin. Working with someone like John Deere, I know they'll iron these things out. That's why we go into these projects to try and develop something that's usable at the end of the day.