Best Practice Advice and Guidance

Events

Events are held by various partners, both nationally and locally, and are listed on the following sites:

• Agri-tech East
• AHDB
• Championing the Farmed Environment (CFE)
• Farmers Weekly
• Groundswell
• Innovation for Agriculture (IFA)
• Linking Environment and Farming (LEAF)
• Norfolk FWAG
• Norfolk Rivers Trust (NRT)
• Soil Association

Water quality

Understanding and monitoring soil

• AHDB provide useful information on how to conduct and record earthworm counts.
• Soil classification information from the National Soil Resources Institute.
• The free, easy-to-use, online Soilscapes viewer – a mapping tool produced by Cranfield University.
• Visual evaluation of soil structure (VESS) for soil health.

Soil management and improving quality

• AHDB’s ‘Great Soils‘ resources, guides and factsheets.
• AHDB Pork’s ‘Soil management plan for outside pig keepers’.
• CFE’s ‘Soil management for your farm business’.
• CFE’s ‘Prevent soil compaction‘,
• CFE’s ‘Soils and pesticide application‘ guide.
• CFE’s ‘Support healthy soil organic matter‘.
• CFE’s ‘Ensuring suitable drainage‘.
• Cornell University’s ‘Comprehensive Assessment of Soil Health‘.
• Cranfield ‘Tramline management’ report.
• Cranfield University’s ‘A guide to better soil structure’.
• Cranswick PLC’s ‘Best Practice Techniques for Improving Soil Stability and Sustainability Under Pigs‘ (Produced in partnership)
• Farming Futures’ ‘Focus on: Soil Management’.
• Hutchinsons’ ‘Healthy Soils’.
• Innovation for Agriculture’s ‘Soil health’ videos.
• NFU’s soil articles.
• NIAB’s ‘Integrating leys in the cropping system‘.
• Soil Association’s ‘Improve your soil’.
• Soil Association’s ‘technical soil guides’.
• Sustainable Soils Alliance ‘Soil research recommendations‘.
• The Environment Agency’s ‘Think Soils’ Manual.
• The Rivers Trust ‘Soil Management’ pinpoint guide.
• The Rivers Trust ‘Cultivation techniques to protect soils’ pinpoint guide.
• The Rivers Trust ‘Using vegetation to protect soil’ pinpoint guide.

Interventions to ‘slow the flow’

• ABACUS Agriculture’s video that looks at two farms that have implemented agroforestry https://www.agricology.co.uk/resources/afinet-agroforestry-uk
• Agricology’s video on ‘The practical considerations for agroforestry systems and potential benefits‘.
• CFE’s ‘Using trees and hedges to protect natural resources‘.
• FWAGs’ ‘Connecting Floodplains’ Information Sheet
• FWAGs’ Silt trap’ and ‘in-field bund‘ Information Sheets
• Soil Association’s ‘Agroforestry Handbook‘.
• The Rivers Trusts’ ‘Silt trap creation‘ Pinpoint Guide
• The Wildlife Trusts’ Managing Woody Debris in Rivers, Streams & Floodplains Guide
• The Woodland Trusts’ ‘Planting trees to protect water‘.

Management measures

• AHDB’s ‘Nutrient Management Guide RB209’.
• CFE’s ‘Avoid pesticide contamination from the farmyard‘.
• CFE’s ‘Avoid pesticide contamination from the field‘.
• CFE’s ‘Managing nutrients‘.
• Defra’s ‘Groundwater protection’ guide.
• Defra’s ‘Nitrates and phosphates: plan organic fertiliser and manufactured fertiliser use‘ publication.
• FWAG’s ‘Harvest and storage’ Information Sheet
• Norfolk Rivers Trust’s ‘Improving water quality case study‘.
• Norfolk Rivers Trust’s ‘Investigating measures to reduce run-off’ case study.
• Norfolk Rivers Trust’s  ‘Tramline and wheeling disruption guide‘ (With the machinery available for farmers to trial for free)
• Norfolk Rivers Trust’s and Branston Ltd.’s ‘Potato Growing: A best practice guide for improving soil health, and water quality and quantity’.
• The Environment Agency’s ‘Farming Rules for Water’.
• The Rivers Trusts’ ‘Cover Crops’ Pinpoint Guide
• The Rivers Trusts’ ‘Hedge and Boundary Creation’ Pinpoint Guide
• The Rivers Trusts’‘Tramlines’ Pinpoint Guide
• The Rivers Trusts’ best practice pinpoint guides, including ‘water pollution risk reduction‘.
• The Rivers Trust’s ‘Clean water separation’ guide.
• West Country Rivers Trust and The Rivers Trust’s ‘Water Sensitive Farming Checklist‘.

Water quantity

Water use and irrigation

• AHDB Pork’s ‘Water usage tips’.
• AHDB’s ‘Irrigation best practice guide for potatoes‘.
• Cranfield University and Natural England’s ‘Save water and money – Irrigate efficiently‘.
• Cranfield University’s ‘Water for agriculture: collaborative approaches and on-farm storage’.
• ‘Waterwise on the farm‘ – A water management guide produced by the Environment Agency, Leaf, NFU and Defra.
• The Environment Agency’s ‘State of the Environment report: Water resources and quality‘.
• The Rivers Trust’s ‘Irrigating crops’ pinpoint guide.
• The Rivers Trust’s ‘Reducing water loss’ pinpoint guide.
• The UK Irrigation Association’s ‘Irrigation Booklets‘.
• Water Resources East.