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Earthworms are primary candidates for national soil health monitoring as they are ecosystem engineers that benefit both food production and ecosystem services associated with soil security. Supporting farmers to monitor soil health could help to achieve the policy aspiration of sustainable soils by 2030 in England; however, little is known about how to overcome participation barriers, appropriate methodologies (practical, cost-effective, usefulness) or training needs. This paper presents the results from a pilot #60minworms study which mobilised farmers to assess over >1300 ha farmland soils in spring 2018. The results interpretation framework is based on the presence of earthworms from each of the three ecological groups at each observation (20 x 20 cm x 20 cm pit) and spatially across a field (10 soil pits). Results showed that most fields have basic earthworm presence and abundance, but 42% fields may be over-worked as indicated by absence/rarity of epigeic and/or anecic earthworms. Tillage had a negative impact (p < 0.05) on earthworm populations and organic matter management did not mitigate tillage impacts. In terms of farmer participation, Twitter and Farmers Weekly magazine were highly effective channels for recruitment. Direct feedback from participants included excellent scores in trust, value and satisfaction of the protocol (e.g. 100% would do the test again) and 57% would use their worm survey results to change their soil management practices. A key training need in terms of earthworm identification skills was reported. The trade-off between data quality, participation rates and fieldwork costs suggests there is potential to streamline the protocol further to #30minworms (5 pits), incurring farmer fieldwork costs of approximately £1.48 ha-1. At national scales, £14 million pounds across 4.7 M ha-1 in fieldwork costs per survey could be saved by farmer participation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper assesses the impact of current market conditions and Agenda 2000 CAP reforms, particularly the 'rebalancing' of support between cereals and oilseed crops, on crop gross margins and hence on the incentive to produce oilseed rape on three representative farm types in eastern England. Results indicate that under a conventional rotation, oilseed rape area falls substantially on two of the farm types considered. However, the incentive to plant break crops more frequently increases after the reform; under a two-break crop rotation, oilseed rape area remains at pre-form levels. Oilseed rape prices of c. £100 per tonne, particularly when combined with unrestricted set-aside rates, conventional rotations and low cereal prices, would give farmers in eastern England substantial incentives to reduce the area of the crop grown. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The paper analyzes penetration of total solar, T, near infrared and photosynthetically active radiation (PAR). PAR, measured by tube solarimeters at Rothamsted, England in five different crops, includes sugar beet, field beans, kale, and spring wheat. The measurements are used to obtain the sunfleck parameters in Monteith's theory. Crop transmission parameters calculated from the daily radiation totals changed little when crop cover was full.

The discovery of aflatoxins began immediately after an outbreak of a disease of turkeys of unknown etiology in England in 1960. The disease was called Turkey “X” disease and was eventually attributed to a toxic groundnut meal imported from Brazil. From that point, an extensive effort to find the cause eventually elucidated that a species of mold, called Aspergillus flavus, was involved and the hepatotoxic products of this mold, found also as components in the toxic groundnut meal, were called aflatoxins. The finding that the aflatoxins were carcinogenic caused concern for their occurrence in human foods and led to worldwide efforts to determine the relationships of these carcinogens to human disease and determine their occurrence in human foods as well as in animal feeds. The findings that the aflatoxins were immunosuppressive resulted in establishing that they were probable underlying causes to other diseases, mostly infectious in nature. Subsequent efforts led to the finding that aflatoxins can occur preharvest and therefore the aflatoxins were no longer only a storage problem. Major crops such as corn, peanuts, cottonseed, and certain tree nuts were frequently found to be contaminated. These findings were cause for the aflatoxin problem to become a large multidisciplinary scientific investigation into various aspects of concern such as eradication, control, analysis, epidemiology, and plant pathology as well as major efforts to determine the nature of animal disease caused by the aflatoxins. Present-day investigations with aflatoxins continue with elimination as a major thrust based on knowledge of the biosynthetic pathway, genetics of both host and pathogen, host-parasite-vector interactions, plant breeding, biocontrol, and selected agronomic practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Fast-growing tree clones selected for biomass plantations are highly productive and therefore likely to use more water than the agricultural crops they replace. We report field measurements of transpiration through the summer of 1994 from two poplar clones, Beaupré (Populus trichocarpa Torr. & A. Gray × P. deltoides Bartr. ex Marsh.) and Dorschkamp (P. deltoides × P. nigra L.), grown as unirrigated short-rotation coppice in southern England. Stand transpiration was quantified by scaling up from sap flow measurements made with the heat balance method in a sample of stems. Leaf conductances, leaf area development, meteorological variables and soil water deficit were also measured to investigate the response of the trees to the environment. High rates of transpiration were found for Beaupré. In June, when soil water was plentiful, the mean (± SD) transpiration rate over an 18-day period was 5.0 ± 1.8 mm day−1, reaching a maximum of 7.9 mm day−1. Transpiration rates from Dorschkamp were lower, as a result of its lower leaf area index. High total leaf conductances were measured for both Beaupré (0.34 ± 0.17 mol m−2 s−1) and Dorschkamp (0.39 ± 0.16 mol m−2 s−1). Leaf conductance declined slightly with increasing atmospheric vapor pressure deficit in both clones, but only in Beaupré did leaf conductance decrease as soil water deficit increased. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Fossil records of Cannabiaceae pollen and Cannabis achenes from Flandrian deposits at three sites in eastern England are presented as further evidence for the past cultivation of this crop. It is suggested that retting of hemp to extract fibre was carried out at each of the sites. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pollen originating from small populations of Tilia cordata is largely deposited within a few hundred metres of the trees, so that their presence can only be detected by pollen analysis at sites within distances of this order. Pollen diagrams from such sites show a continuous curve for Tilia pollen extending to the present surface, although the values may be only about 1% of arboreal pollen. Pollen analysis shows that T. cordata was present in the Lake District by about 5000 to 4800 B.C.; it then became plentiful in the southern valleys and extended to reach its present north-western limit, or just beyond, by 3100 B.C., when migration ceased. While the tree was extending its range, it must have been able to produce frequent large crops of fertile seed but subsequently regeneration from seed ceased. After 3100 B.C., the proportion of its pollen initially may increase but then generally decreases. Although there are small recoveries at several horizons, these are not certain evidence of reproduction by seed. Failure to produce fertile seed renders the species particularly sensitive to woodland clearance and has resulted in a decrease in abundance within the Lake District and its virtual extinction in west Yorkshire and south Lancashire. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines yields per acreage in English agriculture during 1250-1860. Between the late medieval period and 1884, when the first complete national figures were collected, grain yields per acre in England increased by about 150 per cent. The period of greatest uncertainty about grain yields is from 1450 until 1800. After 1450 manorial sources become scarce, and it is only in the 1790s that samples of yield information began to be collected on a national basis. There is an almost complete lack of information on the yields of meadow land over this same period. Consumption of grain would of course be affected by real incomes, and so the figure also shows the wage of building workers in terms of grain. As the figure shows, if we choose our decades carefully we can get periodic comparisons of required grain output for periods where grain consumption per caput would be similar because wages in terms of grain were similar. The labour inputs to thresh a bushel of grain appear to have been constant over the period 1561 to 1850. This is a good test of the reliability of the piece rates used since threshing rates should be independent of fields, and the technique for hand threshing changed little over the whole period from 1250 to 1850. In contrast the number of man-days required to reap an acre of wheat rose considerably from 1561 to 1860.