Scottish cereal growers have shown a yen for improving their lot and are set to make their presence felt at this year’s Yield Enhancement Network (YEN) Awards.

Record numbers have submitted entries for the annual awards run by the network – which is organised by ADAS – and could it be that drought down south will lead to a clear-cut Scottish winner this year?

The network connects agricultural organisations and farmers striving to improve crop yields. Each year individual YEN members enter a crop into a national competition, with the aim of not just having the biggest yield, but also to get as close to reaching yield potential as possible.

Thanks to the growing interest from Scottish farmers, Gavin Dick, the knowledge exchange manager at AHDB, has now set up a Scottish YEN group. “Scottish farmers have done extremely well in the YEN awards in recent years, but the real benefit to taking part is not winning, but the journey; the processes all the farmers go through to get to the point of harvest, the consistently measure, monitor and discuss the progress of their crop.

“We hope this new group will be a focused forum for farmers to discuss all the components which go into building high yielding cereal crops; any farmer taking part in YEN and interested in joining the group should get in touch with AHDB.”

Farms taking part in YEN are assessed in terms of climate, soil type and growing season and the result is a potential yield figure that could be reached in the best possible conditions. The nearer the farmers get to that the more likely they are to win.

Inspiration comes from previous winners David Fuller-Shapcott and Donald Ross.

Donald farms a 700-acre mixed arable farm in Easter Ross and competed in the YEN Awards for the second time last year. His wheat growing efforts netted him 'gold' in the yield potential category (for growing to 83% of potential highest yield, which was judged to be 17.8 t/ha). He came second for overall yield for his actual crop of 14.8 t/ha.

This year Donald is competing again and despite some challenging weather, the crop has coped well. "We increased the seed rate this year due to poor weather in the autumn as well as applying two shots of growth regulator to keep it standing. It’s also had a full fungicide programme to minimise any risk.

“The only concern is the dry weather we experienced, but as the whole country is in the same boat I’d say it’s all still to play for!”

Borders farmer and 2018 YEN entrant, David Fuller-Shapcott, is also fairly pleased with this year’s crops. “I’m submitting five separate crops for the competition this year – two wheats, two rapes and a spring barley," he said.

The barley is not looking quite as good as I’d like, but the wheats and rapes are looking pretty good, especially after the dry weather we have been experiencing.”

This year marks his fifth year as a YEN entrant, and he is a man used to success after picking up two separate awards in 2015 and 2016. But, it wasn’t the prospect of winning which got him involved with YEN.

“What attracted me to YEN was the prospect of learning something which would make a real difference to my crop production – and I absolutely have," he said. “I know a lot more about the way the plant behaves, more about the phases of growth and the importance of biomass.

“I now do more tissue analysis to check what nutrients are being taken up by the crop, and a broad spectrum soil analysis prompted me to roll out a farm wide trace elements programme aimed at improving the soil.”

This year’s YEN Awards will be presented at the annual conference in November, and there’s a fair chance we’ll see a Scottish name among the winners once again.