International Perspective: OptRx® Proves Itself in a Tough UK Season

Last week, I had the opportunity to catch up with some of our UK users of OptRx and see how they are getting along.

Last year was a particularly tough year for a lot of UK farmers. It rained most of the summer which lead to a difficult harvest, reduced yields and then tough drilling conditions for the subsequent crops. This ultimately lead to some uneven, patchy emergence and in some cases, winter wheat has only just been sown in the last 2-3 weeks!

While all our customers have seen the benefits of using OptRx over the last few seasons, most are now saying that 2013 will be a great test for them as they now start the Nitrogen spreading for the year. In fact, by the time you read this most will have applied the first round of N.

During these visits, I met up with RAC Contracting from Leicestershire who have been using OptRx for the last 3 years and are now offering real time VRA N to all their customers. In fact, they have bought a second machine complete with OptRx for the 2013 season!

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James told us of an interesting field that they used OptRx on last year. It had been partially planted with peas the year before (2011) and had OSR on it last year. The grower has asked them to apply N differently in the area where the peas had been but this would have meant driving across the way the field had been planted as well as having a ‘false’ headland in the middle of the field for turning. James convinced him to let them spread the field normally and let the OptRx do “its thing”. The maps below show the results of that application:

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Needless to say, the customer was very impressed and it brought home the value of using OptRx over the entire farm. OptRx had applied less N where the peas had been and the resulting application rate was with 1-2kgsN/ha of what he had wanted to apply anyway. And it was a far more efficient way of spreading the field for James.

Having covered approximately 10,000ha last year of total fertilizer spreading, they hope to increase that area this year. OptRx gives them an extra edge over their competitors as well as providing a relatively inexpensive investment.