New features on show – and old favourites too

• Innovation among key attractions

• Selling direct among big exhibits

• Other crop technologies on show

Visitors to Cereals can enjoy all their favourite attractions plus some exciting new exhibits at this year’s two-day event.

New features for 2022 include Crop to Kitchen which will showcase arable farmers selling direct to consumers, a curated version of the winter wheat and barley recommended lists and a demo area for machinery and kit that qualifies for the Improving Farm Productivity grant scheme. 

With farmers seeking new ways to generate income as basic payments decline, Crop to Kitchen will explore how growers are creating opportunities using redundant farm buildings and crop diversification, explains Cereals event director Alli McEntyre.

“Farmers will be able to talk to other farmers with experience of selling directly to consumers. Products featured include quinoa, mushrooms, rhubarb, oilseed rape oil, wine, juices, heritage wheat, flour and beer.”

Wheat and barley

Cereal growers will be able to see some 26 popular winter wheats thanks to arable project manager Jonathan Backhouse, who has curated varieties representing groups 1-4 from every breeder on the AHDB recommended list. 

This feature will also showcase 14 winter barleys, again with popular picks from all breeders to represent malting, two-row feed and six-row hybrid varieties.

“While many of these varieties are on display elsewhere in the show, this gives growers the opportunity to walk among them in one place for side-by-side comparison,” says Mr Backhouse.

Farm productivity

The Improving Farm Productivity grant scheme covers up to 40% of the costs for slurry treatment and robotics and innovation equipment. Such kit, including for robotic weeding and harvesting, will be on show in the dedicated demo area.

An expanded Direct Drill Arena will include demonstrators showcasing and discussing their technology. Aitchison, Amazone, Claydon, Horizon, Horsch, John Deere, Kuhn and Mzuri will be among the companies demonstrating in this area.

Regular exhibits will include breeder variety plots and agronomy trial plots – with big hitters Bayer, Corteva, KWS and Senova/Just Oats back this year. The NIAB Soil Hole is returning and so too is the Syngenta Sprays and Sprayers arena.

Other machinery

As well as inter-row weeding demonstrations, there are also plans to have in-row weeding demos – helping growers keep on top of the ever-present weed challenge. Garford, Lemken and Terrington will be among the companies represented.

“Inter-row weeding can be used for cereals whereas in-row weeding is used for salad crops such as lettuces,” says Garford technical sales manager Allan Knight. “There is more and more machinery being demonstrated at Cereals.”

Farmers are diversifying into other crops as well and this machinery will be showcased too. Visitors will be able to see working demo plots from Agxeed, Claydon, Horizon, J. Brock, Kuhn, Mzuri, New Holland and TWB Engineering.

After its successful debut at last year’s Cereals, the NAAC Drainage Hub will be back to help farmers find out more about the subject. It will bring together agricultural contractors with land drainage expertise.

Seminar programme

The Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board will be running a Code Green for Farming seminar programme. This will analyse farm policy, rising input costs, making the environment pay and new technology.

Meanwhile, Farmers Weekly will be running seminars based on its popular Transition series. Hosted in the New Era Theatre, they will look at ways farmers can make their businesses more financially and environmentally sustainable.

Around the event, numerous exhibitors will be on hand to answer visitors’ questions, with post-harvest technology and the latest crop protection and nutrition products on show, says event director Alli McEntyre.

“At this time of transition for farmers, Cereals offers an ideal one-stop-shop to see all the latest innovation in action so that arable farmers can get a real flavour of what technology will be most suited to their farm,” Ms McEntyre  explains.