Normally when starting an article there is much gnashing of teeth and wondering around the garden, or pub in my case, deciding on how to help and enlighten our industry (hopefully). But seeing as it hasn’t stopped raining since last September, on this occasion the...

Well that’s Christmas out of the way again, thankfully, so we can now turn our minds to growing. Unfortunately, the wet autumn is turning into a wet winter with the added problem of it being warm. Isn’t it strange that even though we couldn’t get out with fungicides...

Can you believe it, it’s that time of year again but of course this year is a little different as it hasn’t stopped raining for weeks on end. This fact alone has made the autumn season almost impossible (totally impossible in places) and we need to look at what we can do when we can travel as the soil is going to be in an unusual state. We need to accept that the consistent pouring down has had a sever cleaning effect on the soil.

For generations farmers and growers have simply ignored Silicon as a plant nutrient even though research has shown that it is equally important as Calcium, Phosphorous, Magnesium, Sulphur and believe it or not, Nitrogen. As we watch the farmer lead revolution on reducing inputs of fertilisers and chemicals Silicon will once again become known as an essential nutrient because of its ability, amongst others, of strengthening plant cell walls so that they can resist pest and disease attack plus they allow the plant to grow in high salinity situations which is a world-wide issue. Pest attack is further resisted because evidence suggests that Silicon reduces the amount of soluble Nitrogen available in the sap which attracts aphids.