2025 Trials Update
Danny Sherlock
Crop Health Consultant, East
Potato Trials Nutrition & Blight Prevention
Each year at Aiva, we implement trials to gain a deeper understanding of our products’ performance and where they can be best placed in a regenerative system. The process also allows us to adjust rates and timings to enhance plant and soil interactions, benefiting plant growth, soil health, and disease prevention. We not only trial our products but also evaluate and trial many other promising products from the market.
2025 marks our third year running potato trials in collaboration with Deben Agronomy based in Suffolk. This year, we have two potato trials focussed on nutrition and early blight prevention. All applications have now been completed, and crops are entering the stage of senescence, with yield assessments soon to be carried out.
The nutrition trial starts off with Turret as a replacement for conventional potato starter fertilisers such as 7-20-0, which are compared in the trial. Other treatments include Phosphorus, Citadel, Pulsar and Trinity throughout the growing period to help balance plant nutrition. Due to the warm weather this year, the crop growth was ahead of schedule, so the application timings have been adjusted to reflect this. With the final use of mancozeb in the UK coming to an end later this year, chemical control options for potato blight are becoming increasingly limited. Therefore, we have been trialling programmes to help with early blight prevention. This year the blight trial is in Essex and includes Soteria, Armour, Consortium and Citadel applied regularly throughout the growing period alongside a fungicide programme and untreated. The Aiva programme is aimed at protecting and strengthening the plants to resist disease. This year with the drier conditions, blight incidence was minimal – confined mainly to headlands until the last application.
Seaweed Trials
Given the wide variety of seaweed products available, we’ve been approached by numerous companies interested in having their products trialled – it can be difficult to determine which is the best to use in agriculture. So, this year we decided to trial three different types on spring oats and spring barley, applying them at different growth stages. These crops have recently been harvested, and we will now review tissue analysis, brix levels, grain analysis and yield. With the season being so dry, results may be limited, but we plan to run plant establishment trials with these products to complete all timings for cereals.
Broccoli Trials – Head Rot Prevention
In Scotland we have repeated trials on broccoli aimed at the management of head rot, a growing concern due to the withdrawal of copper products. Last year Aiva had Soteria and Armour in the trial with promising results, albeit the head rot was low incidence. This year we are repeating those treatments and included Multiextra for its nutrient package, to hopefully confirm and build on previous success. Last of all we have various on farm trials with biologicals. These are powerful microbial concentrations highlighted for their ability to improve plant and soil health, protect plants against disease and facilitate nitrogen delivery to plants. We will continue to monitor their performance in real farming conditions and then inform you of their role in arable ecological systems.
What’s your next experiment?
We believe the best products prove themselves in the field, not just the lab. Whether it’s finding the right seaweed biostimulant or unlocking soil nitrogen with new biologicals, we are constantly learning. I’d love to hear what challenges you are facing on your farm this season. Let’s connect and see if one of our proven trial protocols could be the solution you’ve been looking for.
About the Author
Danny Sherlock
Crop Health Consultant, East
I’m Danny, AIVA’s Crop Nutrition Consultant in the East. It’s a pleasure to meet you! Holistic management is key to how I work. Coming from an agronomy background I understand that collaboration is the best way to develop a systems approach plan. Everyone has their own unique scenario, I cannot wait to aid you on yours.
Got a question? Contact Me.
