CANFA Comment

24 Aug: Columbus via Chicago, USA
Ray and I left Cimmyt and the group earlier in a chaufer driven car to arrive at Mexico Airport to find that they upgraded us to business class (they said that they needed to redistribute the weight in the plane? Ask no questions - just accept it all. As a consequence we had a great flight to Chicago. We were up at 3.10 am though to catch up with John Lawrie's group.

We had a long way to come here to Columbus but managed to fit in a couple of farm visits on the way. John and the crew tried to make us envious of the week we missed with them. The visit to Dwyne Beck in south Dakota and to Edwin Blosser (compost making) were apparently the two outstanding visits.

Tonight we are off to dinner at the Ihio University with Dr Randal Reeder (who spent four months with Neville Gould at Trangie some years ago) and Professor Rattan Lal (a soil carbon specialist), and a few others who we are yet to meet. We are looking forward to it.

Anne Williams

11 Aug: Scotland
Since the last email we arrived safely in Bristol and left again without seeing any violence. Our mini-bus got graffiti on it though which was a shame as it was relatively new and the driver owned it.

We had the most amazing drive up to Edinburgh seeing first class farming country and scenery, even a couple of castles. We stopped for lunch by the Irish sea near Lancaster and at a pub across the border in Scotland for a break before arriving about here about 8pm.

Today we went and had an official visit with many of the researchers at the Scottish Ag College (SAC) whose mission is to enhance the rural economy and environment. After the introduction presentations we went to visit some trial work - unfortunately in the rain. But we wouldn't have missed it for the world. We saw barley and wheat trials and greenhouse gas emission work. They had large tubes covering patches in plots of different fertilisers and rates to estimate the amount of nitric oxide emissions. This gas is much more detrimental in terms of climate change than carbon dioxide.

Some of the researchers we met were Jaan Ratsap and Dr Neil Havis who are working on biopolymers as an alternative to fungicides. Apparently every plant has the ability to defend itself by becoming resistant to pathogen attack by producing elicitors. These and other plant derived materials can be sprayed on plants to help the plant fight fungal infections. GRDC is collaborating with SAC so it means that Australian growers would be in the box seat if this research leads to a final product. It sounds exciting research and just what we need as it gives another tool to be able to use to prolong the life of fungicides.

I also was speaking to Dr Oliver Knox who was interested in our compost operation. Apparently he spent time at Narrabri so knew our area well. He is also doing some exciting work with biochar. Dr Bruce Ball, a soil scientist, gave us a quick run down on visible testing of soil structure and how to rank it. He works closely with David McKenzie from Australia - talk about a small world.

Interestingly at the wheat trials they had trials without nitrogen and fungicide that were very sparse compared to the other plots that were expecting to yield 9-11t/ha. These were only expected to yield about 3 t/ha....no wonder they put nitrogen on!I said that we wish we could get such a yield increase but they said that they would prefer to be able to do what we do with the compost!

Only about 1% of farmers in Scotland use no-till but the farmer who owned place where the trials were was keen to try it, especially if it could cut down on diesel use.

Anyway that is all from Scotland and England. We fly out tomorrow morning for Canada which will be great but a little sad as this is a fantastic country and well worth a longer visit.

Anne and Ray Williams