Biofertiliser boosts pumpkin diversification success

Pumpkins and alpacas seem an unlikely recipe for a successful diversification on a dairy farm. But for Staffordshire farmer Roger Cooke and his girlfriend Ruby the two combined to create a very busy and fruitful Halloween venture.

After considering the idea of growing pumpkins for a couple of years, Mr Cooke took the plunge last spring, spraying off a 0.8ha patch of pasture by his farmhouse at Tunstall Farm Park, Woodseaves into which to plant five different varieties of pumpkin.

“I was told I needed a really fine seedbed for pumpkins,” Mr Cooke says. “But I used my knowledge of seed-to-soil contact, and with the larger seed thought we’d be okay with a minimum tillage approach.”

That fits the philosophy of the farm, which is to minimise soil disturbance and reduce synthetic inputs as much as possible.

Instead of a plough and / or power harrow approach, a minimum disturbance strip-till subsoiler was used to create the seedbed into which 4000 pumpkin seeds were planted by hand on 1 June.

Each seed, except in four rows, was coated with a powdered biological seed dressing developed by Edwards Agricultural Supplies in conjunction with bionutrition company Biolevel.

Mycroboost contains a blend of microbes that help fix nitrogen from the air and solubilise phosphorus in the soil to make the nutrients available to the plant. It also contains mycorrhizae fungi to help transport nutrients from further afield and dried seaweed to feed and help retain moisture next to the seed where it is needed most.

“There was lower germination and survival rates where we hadn’t used Mycroboost. The plants visually looked weaker and didn’t crop as well when it comes to fruit production.” In contrast Mycroboost promoted better root growth that helped the plants withstand the summer drought better, he says.

Once the plants reached the size of a football, Mr Cooke applied a dose of Edwards Advanced seaweed, which provides a huge amount of trace elements and plant hormones and meant, other than an application of box muck prior to planting, no fertiliser was required.

“I had put aside one bag of fertiliser for the pumpkins, as they were a cash crop, but I never needed to use it as the plants grew so phenomenally well.”

Further diversification

The main challenge during the growing season was mildew, induced, he thinks, by irrigating with a rain gun mounted on a slurry tank, during the worst of the drought. A natural mildewicide, bicarbonate of soda, was used to treat the mildew.

Pumpkin production from the patch compared well with more intensive pumpkin production in other parts of the country, Mr Cooke believes. “We had a bumper crop.”

That led to fruition of part two of the planned diversification – an event staged around Halloween featuring Ruby’s Alpaca business and where visitors picked their own pumpkin.

“It attracted a huge number of people via Instagram, as well as Facebook. People were coming from as far away as the Wirral and Birmingham. “

In total around 5000 visitors visited the Pumpkin and Alpaca events over a two-week period, Mr Cooke says. “We’re now looking to double our area of pumpkins next year, and perhaps increase the number of varieties we grow.”

In a year characterised by an extremely hot and dry summer, other crops and grassland on Mr Cooke’s 108ha farm benefited from his use of Edwards Advanced Seaweed and BioN – another blend of bacteria from Biolevel which can fix atmospheric nitrogen and make phosphorus more available to plants.

Root growth

Grassland used for grazing by the 140 cross-bred Montbeliarde, Holstein and Norwegian Red dairy cows was sprayed with a single application of BioN, together with Edwards Advanced Seaweed in April.

That followed a pass with an aerator earlier in the season, he recalls. “In conjunction, the two promoted a lot of root growth, which stood it in good stead for the drought.”

Substantial amounts of grass grew without any applications of slurry or calcium ammonium nitrate until it burned up in the drought. “I was pre-mowing good quality grass with very little rejection from the end of April through to the end of June.”

Cows were turned out at the end of February, with paddocks typically grazed for 12 hours before moving. “We were able to go around the paddocks four or five times, and even on the fifth time there was still plenty of grass growing until the moisture ran out.”

No water or additional products were applied during the summer drought, he says, with grazing platform recovering well from September to grow a lot more grass meaning he didn’t need to house the cows until mid-November, helping to reduce some of his forage requirements over winter.

Crop nutrition

On land for silage more traditional fertiliser programmes were used, with slurry and calcium ammonium nitrate applied prior to first cut. “As it was so dry, we didn’t put anything on the aftermaths after either first or second cuts, but next year I plan to use BioN and Edwards Advanced Seaweed on them.”

That will help reduce his synthetic requirements further – something which he is also keen to do on the arable crops with applications of BioN and Edwards Advanced Seaweed likely to be applied to his 15ha of wheat this spring for the first time.

MaizeNP – a maize specific version of the Biolevel microbial blend – was used as a seed treatment last season, with a follow up spray of BioN and Edwards Advanced Seaweed applied in a nutrition programme that also included a nitrogen foliar feed as late as he could go with a self-propelled sprayer, Mr Cooke says.

“The maize stayed green into November, as we had to delay harvest until after the pumpkin and Alpaca events were over. The crop did well considering the season, and importantly stayed green and healthy until we could harvest it.”