Julian Radcliffe is the fourth generation of his family to farm at Penmark Place, in the Vale of Glamorgan.

The mixed farm with cereal beef and sheep totals 526 ha, of which 340 ha is in the arable rotation. Julian grows winter barley and after a study tour to New Zealand, in 2018, has adopted a high input approach to this crop.

Julian said: “We may not be able to reach the potential of NZ but I wanted to find out if, with higher inputs, we could push our barley on from the 7.5- 8 t/ha we routinely achieved. We tried a high input approach on one field and in the first year we did it, we achieved over 10 t/ha in 2019 and have had good results in '21 and '22.”

This year, barley varieties are KWS Orwell and KWS Tardis drilled at 400 seeds/m2, with drilling starting in the last week of September and done by the third week of October.

Julian said: “All our seed is home saved, except for a small amount of new seed to multiply up for next year. We’ve grown hybrids and six-rows in the past, but as we roll our own barley for feed we do prefer the sample we get from two-rows.”

In terms of cultivations a Sumo Trio plays the biggest part. Julian said: “We plough in some places as we try to combat blackgrass and we also use disc harrows for stale seedbeds as much as possible.” The drill is a Horsch Sprinter which he feels can carry on longer than anything else in wetter conditions on their medium clay loam.

Because of blackgrass the herbicide strategy is robust, with Crystal (flufenacet + pendimethalin) and Avadex (tri-allate) pre-emergence. Julian said: “Without the Avadex we wouldn’t be able to grow barley.”

BYDV is an issue and so he applies a one-spray programme in the autumn, adding: “We have had BYDV trials here and the controls have shown that it can be completely devastating for barley in the wrong year. We have never had a total fail, so we seem to be managing it.”

When the potential is there, Julian will apply 250 kgN/ha with the first split as soon as the ground can be travelled on in the spring to aid good root development. Potash and phosphate have been applied at variable rates for the last 20 years, and there’s muck from his 400 cattle.

He uses PGRs at GS 30 and 37 with chlormequat along with Canopy at the earlier application time and Canopy at the later. “I am a big fan of Canopy as I think it is not as harsh as other products on the crop.”

The main diseases of concern are rhynchosporium and net blotch. He said: “Last year, our programme was AscraXpro (prothioconazole, bixafen + fluopyram) at GS 30 and Revystar XE (mefentrifluconazole + fluxapyroxad) at GS37 and then prothioconazole and Comet (pyraclostrobin) at full ear emergence.

"I would never go back from a three-spray programme because I haven’t got a good enough crystal ball to tell me what the weather is going to be like. I’d rather be preventative than go on a fire engine mission.”

Barley fits into Julian’s system well – it helps spread the workload and is a buffer if forage runs short. All of it is used for his beef cattle with any surplus going to the feed mill.

“This year I’m going to combine some barley at 30% moisture content and crimp it, which should result in a better feed and will get barley off at the end of June, freeing a field up early for oilseed rape establishment," he said.