Mistakes in spring continue to haunt the farmer

It is spring, although the weather saying 'April does what it wants' will certainly apply this year. The spring work attracts arable farmers out. The perfect time to plant potatoes, but also to make mistakes.

I derive the latter from a study published in 1983 that examined where the differences in results between different plots of ware potatoes in the Hoekse Waard came from.

More than ten years earlier, Vinus Zachariasse had already shown in his groundbreaking PhD research (more on this later) that the quality of operational, day-to-day management was an important explanation why one arable farmer achieved a much higher income than the other. Others. Technical skills, which are related to knowledge about the growth processes in plants, matter.

Big data approach in the 80s
One of the many follow-up studies was that study by the information service and the then institutes PAGV and LEI. They conducted a study into one crop, ware potatoes of the Bintje variety. For 50 years (2 and 1979) just about everything that could be measured was measured and digitized on 1980 farms, from pre-fruits to soil type, method of pre-sprouting, planting and processing data, soil compaction to contamination, fertilization, growth of the plants and of course the yield. Nowadays you call that a big data approach.

The data was then processed with a so-called factor analysis. This is a technique that analyzes the data for the relationship between all those variables and tries to isolate the underlying factors. The most important conclusion of the Bus, Bosma and De Hoop team was that there were large differences between parcels in kg yields and in monetary yields.

Pre-sprouting in poter trays
The decisive factor was the spring work. Pre-sprouting in seed pots with light turned out to be important. Compaction in the building furrow, a less good structure in the spring - often in combination with smaller ridges - and a low organic matter content appeared to have a negative influence on the yield of many plots. These were wet years and good drainage (sufficiently deep groundwater levels) proved necessary to achieve high yields. Given the wetness, a higher nitrogen application would also have been desirable.

All in all, well-executed spring work was therefore also of great importance in this study. Tillage errors in planting continued to haunt the farmer throughout the growing season. Problems that arise then are difficult to correct with extra milling or some extra fertilizer.

Out of fashion
Do these aspects still matter today? I fear that this type of research has gone out of fashion since the 80s. With all the attention for 'data science' and soil management, there must be opportunities to repeat this type of research. Although I fear that, despite all the digitization, it would take just as much effort now as it did then to bring the data together in one data set. But there is a lot of money for big data projects, so there may be opportunities here. For the time being, I hope that arable farmers will get through the spring without errors.

Krijn J. Poppe

Krijn Poppe worked for almost 40 years as an economist at LEI and Wageningen UR and now holds a number of advisory and management positions. For Boerenbusiness he dives into his bookcase and discusses current developments on the basis of studies that have become classic.

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