Syngenta Crop Protection UK Ltd - Mark's Blog

Man and his Dog - Innes McEwan

10/09/2010

I have a black Labrador named Bonnie - she is a loving thing, loyal, fun, hard working, always there - probably not the brightest in the world, especially when it comes to making a decision that will definitely result in her benefit. She loves it if I throw a ball for her to go and fetch - she'll ba...

Yields we read about - pub talk?

23/08/2010

I realise it is never clever to voice any form of benefit from others’ misfortune but having helped with harvest at home recently I can honestly say that the resulting price spike that’s occurred due to Russia’s severe drought is going to be a saving grace to us. Much of the wheat land ...

Renewing your ELS? – Need more Points?

10/08/2010

I have had a couple of chats recently with infamous agri-ecolomist (agronomist + ecologist!) Marek Nowakowski of The Wildlife Farming Co concerning ways to replace the points we used to claim for the different management plans under ELS. Some 12,000 agreements are due for re...

RUSSIA TURNS WHEAT'S BOUNCE INTO A JUMP

05/08/2010
Today has seen another hike in wheat prices around all of the major markets. November futures on the London exchange jumped £17/t this afternoon as Vladimir Putin banned exports from Russia (with effect from August 15th) in response to the horrendous drought and crop fires they are cur...

Kick-off to Harvest sees Markets Bounce

18/07/2010
Last week saw the biggest hike in grain prices since the big jump in 2007 when grain supplies were genuinely short around the world. Hot and dry conditions have wiped out around 20% of Russia’s harvest, while Ukraine and Canada have been affected by wet weather. Like the UK, Germany is...

Fertiliser prices to drop?

06/07/2010
Since ammonium nitrate prices have been released earlier this month there has been a good deal of deliberation amongst the farmers I have talked to about fertiliser prices and what may happen to them going forward – is it right to buy now as has become the norm or should we wait until later? ...

Top discussions at Cereals 2010

11/06/2010
For those of us involved in exhibiting at the Cereals Event, it is a little like Christmas; it approaches faster than you realise, requires a good deal of preparation and obsessing about whether your ‘offering’ will have enough ‘wow’ factor and once it’s all over it is a bit of an anti-climax...

Generics – do you get what you pay for?

24/05/2010
It’s been an interesting few weeks in the crop protection market. This year has so far seen a wide divergence between the price of generic formulations of products and those of the R&D manufacturers as well as a higher quantity of generic options in the market. I think it is fair...

Direct drilling wheat for cost control?

17/05/2010
A new (coalition) government, a stronger Pound, oil below $70. A lot has changed in the last couple of weeks. The stronger exchange rate has pushed UK crop prices a little lower and feed wheat prices continue to hover around the costs of production. Taking a helicopter view of the crop protec...

Oilseed Rape – Push for Yield!

23/04/2010
I have had a few questions about the use of a two spray programme using/including Amistar on the basis of low profitability of the OSR crop. I have spoken to grain merchants and Strategie Grains on this and believe the immediate prospects for oilseed rape are probably better than for wheat currently...

Ag-Chem prices

02/04/2010
"Mark – very interesting, but what about our increasing chemical prices? With the industry already under pressure how is this sustainable?" A good question raised by a farmer in response to my last blog. I write from two perspectives, the Syngenta one obviously but also one with ...

Feedback from farm consultancy event

17/03/2010
I went along to the Andersons Outlook seminar on Friday to capture their view of what is happening and likely to happen in the industry over the next year and beyond. Some of the key points were: