View from the East by Dr Keith Dawson

The long winter and late spring continued in Ukraine as it did in Scotland and most of Europe.

Late snows and rain gave a number of frustrating false starts to our 'spring' campaign. The same delays caused the widespread fodder crisis in Scotland and Ireland.

When field conditions improved it seemed that the seasons moved from winter to summer in a single day, but this produced its own problems of rapidly growing winter crops, after a long delay, keen to shoot on the growth stages.

This scenario led to the biggest logistics and timing challenge of our 13 years farming on the western edge of Europe.

I have already talked of the challenge of our sugar beet harvesting campaign, with more than 300,000 tonnes of beet to lift and load and then over 10,000 lorry journeys. This spring dwarfed even this mammoth task, with 45,000 acres of spring crops to drill and more than 65000 acres of good looking winter crops to both fertilise and spray twice in less than a month.

This is set against the increasingly loud ticking of the twin clocks of day degrees and growth stage development. That we have managed to achieve this gargantuan task with our machinery fleet designed for a much softer landing out of winter, is a credit to our operations and agronomic staff. This included two new block managers and young agronomists stepping up and performing.

Our 'Raising Standards' team and other trainers work over the long winter has borne fruit as we have not only succeeded in quantity, but also quality of operations this spring. That all means that our standard operating procedures (SOPs) have been tested to the full.

I am often asked about opportunities for further investment in Eastern Europe and there is still scope for shrewd investors using experienced trustworthy local teams.

Investment needs to be on the best soils, with a range of cropping options and there are some interesting opportunities in the fertile delta area near Gdansk for the savvy at the moment.

One of the key areas for control in these 'rushed' spring campaigns is sprayer hygiene, particularly with SU herbicides and our profitable potato, beet and soya crops. Damage can be catastrophic and straight off the bottom line. Late application of growth stage sensitive herbicides and PGRs is also an important area for control and support.

Our crops are looking well and the fears – in our area at least – of a shortage of moisture causing problems post drilling have been eased by recent rains on our seven production blocks. However, with us and the entire black Sea region, drought is a looming spectre. Already we have lost tillers through dieback in both hybrid and conventional wheats.

Crops have raced through the growth stages and the back of spraying duties has now been broken with ear and mid-flowering sprays applied to winter barley and oilseed rape, respectively. Whilst disease pressure has been lower so far in winter crops, our prothioconazole-based programmes have kept leaves super green and able to intercept all available solar radiation in this shortened growing season.

For the first time we have had access to chlorothalonil – albeit in premix with tebuconazole – to combat resistance challenges both in barley and wheat. It is incredible that there are now moves to look at a ban on chlorothalonil on flimsy evidence of risk and hazard.

The barley crop is important to us and our investors, with more than 25,000 acres planted this season. This crop is worthy of greater development and breeding outwith the brewing and distilling market and a higher beta-glucan barley for Scotland would increase feed markets and increase marketability.

It is very timely that the James Hutton institute is developing its 'Barley Hub' as a centre for excellence for the genomic, breeding and management of this important crop.

We are trialling Conviso herbicide resistant sugar beet from KWS on a wider field scale again this year and the results are promising, with better control of more difficult weeds and less check to smaller plants post emergence.

We were privileged to hear a world class speaker at our recent SSCR agm, in Dundee. The best selling author, Mark Lynas, spoke eloquently on his Damascene journey from a leading boiler-suited activist destroying GM trials and attempting to kidnap Dolly the Sheep – all clones look alike apparently! – to a GM proponent and educator.

A former Greenpeace activist, he published a number of books including 'Seeds of science' which is well worth reading. It addresses technology, environment and GM agriculture.

He altered his views radically since his Greenpeace days and is now fully in favour of GM technology – a journey which required a lot of soul searching and is worthy of respect, especially as it led to a good deal of vitriol from his previous 'green' colleagues.

It is highly unfashionable to admit you are so wrong in this day and age. So why did he change his mind? He candidly admitted that prior to his acts of GM trial vandalism, that as a history graduate, he had not read a single peer reviewed paper related to GM technology.

A deciding factor was that whilst he was relying on scientific facts and evidence on all other issues in his life and work, he was completely ignoring the same approach with GM. The more he researched, the more he realised he had been wrong on GM.

An appearance on Stephen Sackur's BBC 'Hard Talk' programme was particularly humbling. Fair play to him, though he now believes – as I do – that properly regulated GM science is a key technology for the present and the future.

He, too, believes that GM crops lead to a reduction in pesticide use, fuel use, lowered environmental impact and are safe for the consumer. He further believes that glyphosate is safer than alternatives.

I have written before on this subject and the corruption, self interest and under hand payments made to advisers of the WHO, where the initial erroneous reporting on glyphosate was made. He too, like you dear reader, believes that the Scottish Government should make decisions based on facts and evidence. Not on dogma.

However, the new and entirely non-GM CRISPR gene editing technology will move plant breeding further and faster than ever before. We cannot become an agricultural backwater in Scotland by limiting the safe and environmentally sound options to those who grow our food and steward our landscapes.