Edward is farm manager at Troston Farms in Suffolk. He joined the team 7 years ago and has seen the acreage grow from a little over 1,000ha to more than 1,400ha. Soil types are very varied, ranging from blow away sand to heavy clay.
In 2021, Edward won the Farmers Weekly Farm Manager of the Year award.
Initially, the black-grass at Troston Farms was so severe it was hampering yields. Today, however, he can hand-rogue it.
Historically, Edward’s approach has involved mole-ploughing and restructuring soils to improve drainage, spraying-off large patches where the battle has been lost, delaying drilling, using spring cropping, and a robust herbicide programme of Crystal + diflufenican plus Avadex pre-emergence. Edward has also been known to apply a sulfonylurea post-emergence in spring or late autumn.
Edward pays close attention to applications and has a farm policy of applying residual chemistry with 200l water/ha. This, he says, helps optimise coverage.
He will not drill wheat before mid-October and hasn’t needed to spray off any patches of black-grass for four years.
