Angus farmers are at the forefront of efforts to take on the developing challenge of the potato cyst nematode (NPC), which has a multi-million pound effect on Scottish industry each year.
As the chemical characteristics of use are eliminated, an organization of manufacturers and researchers has resorted to biological methods, which come with the use of chitin-rich compost made from a substance naturally discovered in crustaceans.
Martin Cessford, in Brechin, Angus Horticulture, developed the compost and is lately testing it in a box programmed for the NCP (one of the pests has been dismantled) on his Whanland farm.
The effect of compost on NCP infestation is controlled through a study station in Belgium.
Mr. Cessford said: “Dr. Andy Evans of SRUC received a seafood dispensation from food waste 12 years ago, and in six years the fields were clean.
“We know that it turns the flora of the soil, we know that it turns the ground, we just have to do it.
The organization also works with the Rural Innovation Support Service (RISS), led through the Soil Association Scotland, together with SoilEssentials, Scottish Agronomy and SASA, to improve soil sampling to assist farmers and agronomists in action. more productive.
Jim Wilson, MANAGING Director of SoilEssentials, Hilton of Fern, said: “The RISS Group is a way to move the challenge forward and make a difference.
“At SoilEssentials, we use high-intensity sampling to locate PCN nematodes; they don’t do it very far. That provides us with a basis; unless you know where the challenge is and how big it is, you can’t make a plan to solve it. “
Other NCP measurements studied through RISS include trap crops, where nematodes hatch and adhere to other plants where they complete their life cycle, as well as NCP-resistant potato varieties.
nnicolson@thecourier. co. uk
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