Meet the Trialists: Ed Ford
About Ed
Ed and his brother, Charles, farm 600ha of combinable crops at Childerditch Farm in Essex and have recently taken on a further 500ha in Bedfordshire. The original acreage sits predominately on heavy London clay. Childerditch Farm is zero till with a rotation that includes winter wheat, spring beans, spring barley, linseed, and oats.
Alongside the farming enterprise, Ed is a trustee of north_east The Farm Safety Foundation and north_east Forage Aid .
Ed’s approach to grassweeds
Ed has been battling black-grass for over 10 years. The key, he says, is a zero-tolerance approach to the weed.
In the early years that involved spraying off broad acres of crops, as well as delayed drilling, spring cropping and a robust herbicide programme. Today, with a diminished black-grass population, he continues with the cultural controls and employs people to hand rogue any survivors in spring. His approach really is zero-tolerance; he will stop the car, sprayer, or tractor to pull-out individual plants. A typical herbicide programme for the farm is Crystal® + diflufenican and Avadex, topped up with further flufenacet and diflufenican.
Ed’s top tips for black-grass control
- Take a truly zero-tolerance approach
- Spray or hand-rogue survivors in spring
- Delay drilling of winter wheat
