Kick-Off Seed Treatment to boost your yields and sustainably reduce your costs

Through his use of Kick-Off seed treatment, John Stonehouse has been able to boost his yields for the last three years, whilst reducing his cultivation and input costs.

 

Finding the right product for challenging conditions

Based in North Yorkshire, John Stonehouse was struggling to find a product that significantly improved his yields, whilst also fitting into his approach to grow cereals more sustainably. That was until he used Fielder’s Kick-Off, which in the first year doubled his spring barley yield.

John farms a 360 acre mixed arable and beef farm near Scarborough, North Yorkshire. He has to contend with many challenges on the farm such as water-logged soils, droughts, unpredictable coastal weather, different soil types, as well as time pressures. That is why he turned his focus to try and find a product that maximises yields, improves his sustainability aspirations for the farm, as well as helps save him time. As he looked “at different approaches to see what will work best”, John tested Fielder’s Kick-Off on a small 9ha plot of spring barley initially and was delighted with the results he saw.

 

“There was no doubting the benefit” – Kick-Off has improved John’s yields for three years in a row

On that first spring barley trial in 2021, Kick-Off returned 5t/ha, compared to a basic manganese seed dressing that delivered 2.5t/ha. John says, “the real evidence came when we saw the grain yields from the different strips…there was no doubting the benefit of Kick-Off” on improving John’s yields.

Following this small-scale trial, he replicated it again the year after, this time on a larger scale over 50 ha in 2022 on winter barley. Once again John saw an impressive yield improvement of +8.7% vs his crop that only got manganese.

This was backed up for a third time in 2023 with yields enhanced by +4.2% vs untreated seed. John is adamant that that “the deeper and stronger rooting we get from Kick-Off helps sets the plant up for the best possible chance to have a great yield.”

 

Independent trials 

John’s results are not an outlier. In independent trials work over the past three years Kick-Off has demonstrated yield increases on average of +6%. This provides a phenomenal return on investment, as for every £1 spent by a farmer on Kick-Off, they receive £11 back (based on Dec ’23 prices).

 

Kick-Off boosts roots development and germination speed

The inclusion of phosphite in Kick-Off has well-known benefits in promoting root growth. John saw this for himself over the past three years saying, “whilst there was little variation to see above-ground, when we dug up some plants we saw that the root development in the Kick-Off treated crops was way ahead of anything else.” Kick-Off is well known for its benefits on rooting, with another big advocate being Alexander Harley Seeds, based in Perth and Kinross, Scotland. Alexander Harley Seeds MD Douglas Gordon states, “there is no doubt in my mind that the contrast in performance is a result of the superior root development promoted by the Kick-Off seed treatment.”

 

Reducing John’s inputs and costs, whilst saving him time

John has been on a journey to reduce his cultivation costs and minimise the number of passes he must make. Through using Kick-Off for the past three years he has “stopped using the power harrow, so we’re saving a lot on diesel and time.” In his eyes, the best way “to reduce risk is to find a way to boost root development.” By having Kick-Off on his seed John has successfully changed the way he cultivates, providing him ease of mind and saving him time and money.

John believes there may be more scope to the benefits from Kick-Off and is keen to trial them on farm in a way to reduce his costs and environmental impact. “Given the benefits we are seeing in terms of earlier and healthier root development, I think there may be scope to reduce our fungicide programme.”

Success of Kick-Off

After the success of Kick-Off over the past 3 years, John remains thrilled it and uses it on all of his winter and spring seed on the farm, “hopefully translating into better overall yields”. He is currently trialling a range of new bacillus and nutrient seed treatments from Fielder, with yields to be taken in the summer of 2024. He is open to trying new things but acknowledges “it will be some development if it can replace Kick-Off as part of my routine programme!”