Meet the Trialists: Edward Vipond
About Edward
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 north_east Farm Manager of the Year award.
Edward’s approach to grassweeds
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.
Edward’s top tips for black-grass control
- Where necessary, improve soil drainage
- Take out any spring survivors
- Use delayed drilling and spring cropping
