🌾 Crop Husbandry at a glance

🚜 Key Management Decisions

🌱 Essential Plant Nutrients

🌾 Crop Husbandry Goals

🌍 Sustainable Farming

📊 Typical UK Arable Crops

🔍 Crop Monitoring Checklist

✓ Plant population

✓ Crop growth stage

✓ Weed pressure

✓ Pest activity

✓ Disease symptoms

✓ Nutrient deficiencies

✓ Soil moisture

✓ Weather forecast

Explore Crop Husbandry

Learn more about the individual stages of crop production by exploring the sections below:
(Use menu above to access specific pages for these)

This detailed look at Crop Husbandry is often referred to as Agronomy

• 🌾 Cereals
• 🌼 Oilseed Rape
• 🥔 Potatoes
• 🫘 Pulses
• 🌱 Sugar Beet
• 🌿 Crop Nutrition
• 🌍 Soil Management
• 💧 Drainage and Irrigation
• 🐞 Weeds, Pests and Diseases
• 🌱 Integrated Pest Management (IPM)
• 🚜 Precision Farming
• 🌾 Harvesting
• 🏚️ Grain Storage

🚜 Cultivations

Cultivation is the preparation and management of soil before and during crop establishment. The aim is not simply to move soil, but to create suitable conditions for the crop while managing weeds, residues, compaction, drainage and soil structure.

The choice of cultivation system depends on the soil, previous crop, weather, moisture, weed pressure, machinery available and the crop being established.

Good cultivation should set up the crop — not just move soil.

🌱 Why Cultivate?

Cultivations may be carried out to:

• Prepare a suitable seedbed
• Control weeds
• Break or manage compaction
• Improve soil aeration
• Improve drainage
• Incorporate crop residues
• Manage some pests and diseases
• Level the soil for drilling
• Create good seed-to-soil contact

The correct objective will vary from field to field. Cultivation should therefore have a clear purpose rather than being carried out simply because it is traditional practice.

🚜 Types of Cultivation

Cultivation systems can broadly be divided into:

Primary cultivation

The main, heavier cultivation used to break up or disturb the soil and begin preparing the seedbed.

Secondary cultivation

The lighter operations used to refine, level and consolidate the soil before drilling.

There is also increasing use of:

• Minimum / reduced tillage
• Shallow cultivation
• Ultra-shallow cultivation
• Zero tillage / direct drilling

The boundaries between systems are not always clear, particularly between conventional and reduced-tillage systems.

🔨 Primary Cultivation

Primary cultivation is generally the first major soil-working operation.

Its purpose may be to:

• Break up compacted soil
• Invert or disturb the soil
• Incorporate crop residues
• Control weeds
• Improve drainage
• Prepare the ground for subsequent cultivation

Common primary cultivators

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Mouldboard plough

The traditional method of starting seedbed preparation.

Advantages

• Turns the soil
• Buries weeds
• Incorporates crop residues

Disadvantages

• High fuel and machinery requirement
• Disturbs soil structure
• Can increase oxidation of organic matter

Subsoiler

Used where deeper compaction needs to be addressed.

It breaks compacted layers without completely turning over the soil.

Advantages

• Deals with deep compaction
• Leaves more of the soil profile in place

Disadvantages

• High draft requirement
• Can cause smearing if used when soil is too wet

🌾 Secondary Cultivation

Secondary cultivation follows primary cultivation and is used to prepare the final seedbed.

Typical objectives include:

• Breaking large clods
• Creating suitable tilth
• Levelling the soil
• Mixing or managing residues
• Consolidating the seedbed
• Improving seed-to-soil contact

Common secondary cultivators

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A power harrow can produce a fine tilth and level the soil, but excessive use can over-pulverise the soil and increase fuel consumption.

Rollers and presses can improve seed-to-soil contact, but should not be used to excessively compact wet soil.

🌱 Creating the Seedbed

The seedbed provides the immediate environment in which the seed must germinate and establish.

An ideal seedbed needs:

💧 Water

🌬️ Air

🌡️ Warmth

🛡️ Protection from pests and disease

This should produce fast and uniform emergence.

The upper layer should contain suitable smaller aggregates to create a good seedbed, while the soil beneath should retain enough structure and moisture to provide good seed-to-soil contact.

Too coarse

Large clods can:

• Reduce seed-to-soil contact
• Leave seed exposed
• Increase moisture loss
• Produce uneven emergence

Too fine

Overworking soil can:

• Destroy soil structure
• Create excessive fine particles
• Increase capping
• Increase erosion risk

The aim is not the finest possible soil.

It is the right seedbed for the crop and conditions.

🌾 Cultivation Systems

Different cultivation systems manage soil and crop residues in different ways.

Conventional cultivation

Typically:

Plough → cultivate → drill

The plough incorporates much of the crop residue before subsequent cultivation creates the seedbed.

Minimal / reduced tillage

The soil is disturbed less deeply and crop residues may remain closer to the surface.

Potential benefits include:

• Fewer passes
• Lower fuel use
• Lower cultivation costs
• Reduced soil disturbance
• Retention of organic matter and residues

However, reduced cultivation may provide less effective control of some weeds or compaction problems.

Direct drilling / zero tillage

The crop is drilled directly into the existing soil surface without prior cultivation.

Advantages

• Very low soil disturbance
• Reduced fuel and labour requirement
• Crop residues can remain on the surface
• Can help protect soil structure

Limitations

• Requires suitable conditions
• Effective weed management is important
• Requires suitable drilling equipment
• Not suitable for every soil or cropping situation

🌾 Managing Crop Residues

Cultivation is closely linked to what happens to the previous crop’s residues.

Large quantities of straw can interfere with drilling and make good seed-to-soil contact more difficult.

Residues can be:

Baled and removed

This can make cultivation easier in the short term.

However, repeatedly removing large quantities of organic material can reduce soil organic matter and potentially affect soil structure.

Incorporated

Straw and other residues can be mixed into the soil.

This returns organic material to the soil but may require additional cultivation and suitable machinery.

The type and quantity of residue from the previous crop will influence how easily it can be managed.

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🟤 Soil Type and Cultivation

Know your soil before choosing your cultivation.

The soil should be sufficiently dry before cultivation.

Working soil when it is too wet can smear soil particles, damage pore structure and create compaction.

If the soil is too wet, sometimes the best cultivation is no cultivation.

🚜 Choosing the Right Cultivation

There is no single cultivation system that is best for every field.

The decision should consider:

🌱 Soil type

Clay, loam, sand and soil structure.

🌾 Previous crop

What residues and compaction have been left behind?

🌿 Weed pressure

What weeds are present and how can cultivation influence them?

💧 Soil moisture

Is the soil fit to work?

🚜 Machinery

What equipment is available and what are its capabilities?

⏱️ Time and cost

How many passes are actually necessary?

🌍 Environmental considerations

Can soil disturbance, erosion and fuel use be reduced?

The PowerPoint’s central message is to remain flexible and make decisions field-by-field and season-by-season.

🌍 Cultivation and Soil Protection

Cultivation has a major influence on long-term soil condition.

Good practice includes:

• Avoiding unnecessary soil disturbance
• Working soil only when conditions are suitable
• Avoiding compaction
• Maintaining crop residues where appropriate
• Using cover crops or undersowing
• Protecting vulnerable soils from erosion
• Avoiding excessive cultivation of light soils

Leaving suitable surface residues and reducing soil disturbance can help protect soil from erosion and improve water infiltration.

🌱 Current Cultivation Trends

Cultivation systems continue to change.

Reduced ploughing

Ploughing has declined on some farms because of its cost and increased interest in soil health.

Reduced tillage

Minimum and reduced-tillage systems are increasingly used to reduce soil disturbance, fuel use and machinery passes.

Direct drilling

No-till systems can further reduce soil disturbance where soil, crop and weed-management conditions allow.

Precision cultivation

Machinery and precision-farming technology increasingly allow cultivation depth and intensity to be adjusted according to field conditions.

⚠️ Cultivation Safety

Cultivation machinery can be large, heavy and powerful.

Always:

• Follow the manufacturer’s instructions
• Use appropriate training and supervision
• Wear the tractor seatbelt
• Keep PTO guards in place
• Stop the engine before leaving the tractor
• Keep clear of moving machinery
• Hitch and unhitch machinery on firm, level ground
• Check hydraulic connections, links and PTOs are correctly attached

Never work on or clear machinery while it is capable of moving.

📌 Key Points

Cultivation should have a purpose.

• Primary cultivation performs the main soil-working operation.
• Secondary cultivation prepares and consolidates the seedbed.
• Different soils require different approaches.
• Crop residues influence cultivation decisions.
• Avoid cultivating wet soil.
• Reduced tillage and direct drilling can reduce soil disturbance.
• The best system depends on the soil, crop, residues, weather and farm.
• Good cultivation creates the foundations for successful crop establishment.

🚜 The best cultivator isn’t necessarily the biggest, newest or most impressive.

It’s the one that does the job the soil actually needs.

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