MGA Trials Breakfast Meeting, Morley, Norfolk.

On the 6^th of August we welcomed nearly 70 people to our trial site at Morley in Norfolk from across the country. The level of attendance has grown in recent years and we now offer two tours!

The trial site is made possible with kind support from the Morley Agricultural Foundation and some of our sponsors including Severn Trent, Future Biogas and Intracrop alongside revenue from commercial and grower memberships. A huge proportion of the income we receive from membership is spent on R&D, providing truly independent trials in order to help our members achieve better financial returns and lower their impact on the environment.

Those attending had an opportunity to see the Niab Descriptive List 2^nd and 3^rd cut forage maize trials, grain maize, nitrogen response curve, foliar nitrogen and bio-stimulant trials.

The day stimulated a lot of discussion between growers, particularly around grain maize and foliar nitrogen and it was also an opportunity for those attending to compare notes on their crops in the run up to harvest. The advice from Jon Myhill & Neil Groom was clear… you really need to be assessing your crops now in order to achieve the correct dry matter at harvest; poor crops with no/little cob development and those that are showing severe stress due to the drought should be harvested sooner rather than later in order to try and harvest whilst at least some of the plant is still green as there is little prospect of the crop developing further and it is likely that any rain falling now would have little beneficial effect on the crop.

Overall, given the challenges many growers have faced this year with drought conditions once again particularly in East Anglia, the mood was incredibly positive and everyone was looking forward to hearing the results of these trials, and more like it, at the conference in February. Our thanks once again to the Morley Agricultural Foundation, our sponsors and members for making this trial possible.