Down to Earth - Part Two - Compost in Action
The second in a series of short films produced as part of the 'Down to Earth' project; a collaboration between Agricology, RuralPod Media and Down to Earth Media (funded by the Rothschild Foundation), which focuses on promoting sustainable agricultural practices being used on the Waddesdon Estate and beyond. The project looks at approaches being used to transition towards no/low input farming methods whilst highlighting the potential for agroecological innovation.
‘Compost in Action’ takes us to the Cambridgeshire Fens where the Waddesdon Estate has Kingsland Farm. Currently in a 5-year agreement with Wildfarmed, the land was managed by Nick Padwick in 2023, who show us operations at Ken Hill Farms, including practicing innovative composting approaches and arable cropping systems, both of which influenced how he managed the land at Kingsland. Hear how Nick creates “bio complete” compost and compost extracts to improve soil microbiology and reduce synthetic inputs. He also describes an innovative pasture cropping system where strips of herbage leys are being grown inbetween rows of wheat.
Narrated by Ben Eagle
Find out more about the project here https://tinyurl.com/7unsm9cp/
Highlights
- 🌱 The Watson estate embarks on a regenerative journey focusing on compost.
- 🔬 Nick Padwick emphasizes the importance of microbiology in soil health.
- 🚜 Ken Hill Farms is transitioning away from synthetic inputs to compost.
- 💧 Liquid compost extracts are being experimented with for smaller farms.
- 🌾 Innovative cropping systems, like pasture cropping, are being implemented.
- 🤖 Advanced technology assists in precise farming methods, enhancing crop management.
- 📊 Ongoing soil testing and monitoring will guide future practices for improved yields.
Key Insights
- 🌍 Regenerative Agriculture: The Watson estate’s commitment to composting represents a shift towards sustainable farming, reducing reliance on synthetic fertilizers and improving soil health.
- 🦠 Microbial Diversity: The focus on microbiology highlights how restoring beneficial microorganisms can rejuvenate depleted soils, offering a foundation for healthier crops.
- 🚫 Reducing Inputs: Ken Hill Farms’ goal to eliminate synthetic fertilizers showcases a growing trend in agriculture that prioritizes ecological balance and long-term soil fertility.
- 🌿 Compost Extracts: Exploring liquid compost extracts provides a viable solution for smaller farms, maximizing the benefits of compost even with limited resources.
- 🌾 Experimental Cropping: The pasture cropping system illustrates innovation in crop management, promoting biodiversity while allowing for efficient land use.
- 📈 Precision Farming: The integration of technology like satellite guidance enhances farming precision, enabling farmers to optimize their operations and resource management.
- 🔍 Data-Driven Decisions: Regular soil testing and monitoring are crucial for understanding the impact of these regenerative practices, allowing farmers to adapt and improve over time.
Transcriptions
The Watson estate has begun its regenerative Journey with a new cultivation strategy and compost creation at Heart of its new system however the team is looking more widely to further innovate their strategy wild farmed as a company leading the way in regenerative agriculture and working with Farmers like Nick padwick who is imple mented new regenerative practices on the farm he manages I the estate manager at kenhill farms and Estates
Afficher la suite
and as part of my responsibilities I also manage and look after Kingsland Farm which is part of the wone estate the Ken Hill estate in North Norfolk is experimenting with several Innovative regenerative practices Nick believes that the microbiology within compost holds the key to improving soils and for the last 2 years has been experimenting with making and applying compost synthetic inputs here at Ken Hill we're on a journey to remove them totally from our farming system we're now year three and as we start to increase the amount of compost we're putting in on using we're reducing and have reduced the amount of nitrates that we're putting on we are now two years down the road from not using any nitrate fertilizers after making his compost Nick lays it out into long 2 m wide Rose and uses a specialist machine to mix it together and add water once matured the compost is tested for microbial activity and then applied direct to the soil with a Muk spreader at a rate of 5 tons per hectare Nick is also triing liquid compost extracts that could be particularly effective for Farms with a smaller supply of solid compost available compost extract is us taking a compost that is biocomplete and biocomplete means it has all the right levels of fungi bacteria protozoa micro arthopods within it and then we take that physical compost and we're going to put it into a liquid so the reason behind us doing all of this is to put all these missing microbes that our current farming system has depleted so the plowing the cultivating the use of synthetic inputs has degraded and uh destroyed all of these fundamental elements within the soil so we apply both solids and liquids and we find having both of them works really well for us we need a small quantity of compost to produce quite a large quantity of liquid so we need probably 20 kilos of compost to put on four hectares of land to do the same with with physical compost we're putting that on at 5 tons a hectare so we would need quite quite a lot more compost to make the compost extract Nick first adds 5 to 10 kilos of matured compost to a 400 Micron bag before the bag is added to the tea extractor he secures it to the lided erator and seals it the tea extractor is filled with water and the compost mix added when we get to a certain stage so probably about half an hour we can take a sample of the water we can put it under a microscope once we've done that we can then start looking at how many nematodes microarthropods different types of protozoa fungal hyy we have in our water and then at that point we can then apply that to the soil Nick is not only pushing regenerative strategies at Ken Hill back in 2023 he also worked worked with wild farmed on the won Estates Farm in Cambridge here so I see it that won are on that regen Journey uh but we maybe are a few steps ahead of them currently um where we're utilizing our stewardship scheme and it fits in nicely with our our link with wild farmed and I think over time they'll adopt those practices at won once we actually get an idea of the results and the progress of what we're doing here at Kingsland one of the main initiatives at Kingsland is an experimental cropping system one of the things we're doing here is a a pasture cropping system where we're taking herbage lays so it could be Clover plantain shephers parsley and we're drilling them in strips 50 cm strips and then we're growing crops in between [Music] them so this this is our uh strip till Mower and we've had this for about 2 years now and some of the systems that we're operating for our regen and farming system is we're we're growing wheat in between rows of herbage lay which sounds great but how do you manage the herbal lay when you've got wheat growing in between it someone came up with this amazing idea of putting like lots of little lawnmowers on this Central beam so we got a row of herbage lay here and then in between each of the mowers is where we grow our cereal crops and if we move this little curtain and these chains stop anything coming out under here we've got a circle disc with blades on it and those blades spin really really quickly and cut the herbage lay so the benefit of that is that we are able to control that herbage lay and allow the wheat or the cereal crops to grow above it so so there's never been anything like this before within the farming system and technology has enabled us to start really thinking wider H and we can now adopt uh pieces of Machinery like this because of satellite guidance you know the accuracy that we are driving you know 2 cm it's just insane and certainly in my journey within agriculture we've seen tractors with no satellites where we were steering them all the time satellites now are just so amazing so over the next 5 or 10 years I think technology is going to going to change and adapt of course it is it always does and I think things like this is just the start of many many opportunities we see for uh planting so the way we plant our serial crops whether it's planting going away from the monocultures and we can actually plant five or six different seeds at the same time in one pass the technology side will adapt and will change and can only benefit what we're doing as a regen [Music] Farmers so here we seeing now the final stages we're literally days away from Harvest uh once this rain stops going through and we've got five or six different varieties in this field within the strip till system we've got a few thistles poking their heads up it's due really to the to the wet we've had this year we've used our mower several times to just reduce that herbage lay um but you know for no inputs I think this looks a fantastic stand of weed at the end of every Harvest obviously we take time to stand back and review where we currently are and we may tweak certain things but these herbage lays are in for sort of three or four five years so we don't want to keep on swapping them out and changing as we'll never actually get any really good data as to to what we're seeing the rotation will change of course it will the Lays the herbage Lays will they change well no they're going to kind of stay where the way they are um and we'll just hopefully start monitoring and looking at the results from all our soil testing that we're doing to find out whether our soil succession is changing to get to the point where we can grow serial crops once we change that and we start introducing the composts and the extracts we'll hopefully see that leveling up as we get more microbes in our soils it's up to all of us now to to really seriously think about uh how we want to uh look after our soils and maybe to start to um put those microw back into into the soils
