Biological crop nutrition at field scale: what did 2025 show?
In 2025, Dyson Farming Research supported a field‑scale crop nutrition trial being run by our in-house agronomy team. The aim was to test biological nitrogen and phosphorus products under real commercial conditions, rather than small plots.
The trial compared microbial N‑fixing and P‑mobilising inputs, applied pre‑emergence or in‑furrow, alongside standard and reduced‑input approaches. All treatments relied on soil biology, moisture and early‑season conditions to function — in a dry year on heath land soils.
The ranges observed across the trial were notable:
🥔 Total yields ranged from approximately 60 to 65 t/ha.
🥔 Tuber numbers varied between roughly 37 and 39 tubers/m², suggesting differences in tuber set rather than size alone.
🥔 Marketable yield and size distribution showed little separation, despite differences in nutritional strategy.
🥔 Statistical variation across treatments was high, reinforcing the influence of soil type, moisture availability and seasonal stress on biological performance.
Importantly, crops often looked similar through the season, with differences only becoming clear once data was analysed, highlighting the risk of relying on visual assessment alone when evaluating biological inputs.
Full treatment‑level results, statistics and discussion are shared exclusively with Dyson Farming Research members, where the data can be explored in detail and placed into a wider system context.