Get here by Road:
Free car parking on site.
You will be able to access the event site from 7.30am and catering facilities will be open for breakfast. The exhibition stands open at 8am.
Car parks are open from 6am and there is free tea and coffee in the car parks for visitors who arrive between 6am and 7.30am.
The address for the event site is Cereals 2013, Boothby Heath, Lincoln, LN5 0AS.
From the South:
A1 northbound, exit at junction with B6403 (at Colsterworth). Take the B6403 north to Ancaster and take A153 north east to Sleaford. Follow signs for the A15 northbound towards Lincoln, turn left onto the B1202. Please turn off your Sat Nav when you pick up the event signage ‘Cereals Visitors’.
From the East:
A17 westbound to A15 northbound, follow signs north towards Lincoln. Turn left onto the B1202. Please turn off your Sat Nav when you pick up the event signage ‘Cereals Visitors’.
From the North West:
A1 southbound, take the A17 eastbound at Newark. Turn left onto Sleaford Road, right onto Pottergate Road, right onto the A607 and right onto the B1202. Please turn off your Sat Nav when you pick up the event signage ‘Cereals Visitors’.
From the South West:
A46 north-eastbound, take the A17 eastbound at Newark. Turn left onto Sleaford Road, right onto Pottergate Road, right onto the A607 and right onto the B1202. Please turn off your Sat Nav when you pick up the event signage ‘Cereals Visitors’.
From North East:
A46 south-westbound (north of Lincoln), turn off at Thorpe on the Hill/Aubourn/Haddington junction through to Harmston. Turn right onto the A607 and then left to the event site. Do not approach from the A15 southbound. Please turn off your Sat Nav when you pick up the event signage ‘Cereals Visitors’.
Get here by Rail:
Hykeham Station is approximately 8 miles north-west of the event site and Metheringham Station is approximately 6 miles east of the event site.
Get here by Air:
Nearest airports:
East Midlands – approx 50 miles west of the event site.
Birmingham – approx 92 miles south-west of the event site.
Manchester – approx 110 miles west of the event site.
London Stansted - approx 112 miles south of the event site.
London Luton – approx 114 miles south of the event site.
London Heathrow – approx 144 miles south of the event site.
London Gatwick – approx 178 miles south of the event site.
There is no shuttle service from the airports. Visitors are advised to hire a car or book a taxi. All major airports offer hire car facilities.
Getting to Cereals from airports by car:
If you are flying into East Midlands, Birmingham or Manchester airports use instructions from North & South West (above)
If you are flying into a London airport use instructions from South & East (above)
Fixed wing flights - Please contact David Porter for the use of Temple Bruer airstrip (approx 4 miles from Cereals) on +44 (0)7970 033618 or +44 (0)1522 810840
Helicopter landings - Please contact Liz Haynes for information on +44 (0)1788 892045
Taxi's
To get to the event site by taxi from a train station or airport please try the following firms:
Barnes Taxis Tel: +44 (0)1526 833863
JJ Cabs Tel: +44 (0)1529 300448
Woodside Taxis Tel: +44 (0)1529 304444
Patrick Dean Ltd a private farming company based four miles south of Lincoln on the Lincolnshire limestone heath at Mere.
Key facts and figures:
Farm Size
The business occupies 1,500ha across three farms including the cereals site at Boothby Graffoe. Additional land is rented from the Ministry of Defence and neighbouring farmers for growing potatoes.
Soils
The limestone medium loams are very stony and, while free draining, can be sticky.
Rainfall
Average rainfall is 600mm/year. A comprehensive irrigation system serves the whole of Mere Farm using abstraction licences of 195m litres from various spring-fed lakes and winter storage reservoirs.
Cropping
Crops consist of winter wheat, potatoes, oilseed rape, sugar beet, spring barley and poppies for morphine production.
The standard rotation is potatoes followed by wheat, sugar beet, spring barley, oilseed rape, wheat, sugar beet, poppies and wheat. All crops are established following a plough with mounted presses.
Wheat
Varieties (in order of importance): KWS Santiago, Invicta, Cordiale, Crusoe and Zircon.
Average yield: 8t/ha.
Half feed, 10% Group 3, 10% Group 2, 10% Group 1 and 20% for seed production.
Potatoes
Varieties (in order of importance): Desiree, Nectar, Edwards, Piper, Peer and Taurus for processing.
Average yield: 60t/ha.
Annual production of potatoes is about 10,000t of which 5,000t are box stored in five up-to-date, fully environmentally controlled stores at Mere. All potatoes are graded and packed by Branston, a major supplier of Tesco and other retail outlets.
Oilseed rape
Varieties (in order of importance): Sesame, Avatar, Expower, Extrovert and PR46W21.
Average yield: 4.5t/ha.
Sugar beet
Varieties (in order of importance): Cayman, SY Muse and Pasteur.
Average yield: 65t/ha.
A Holmer sugar beet harvester owned and operated with H&J Neville and Son and Blankney Estates harvests around 1,000ha of the host farm’s and neighbouring farmers’ beet each year.
Other crops
Poppies for morphine production (125ha), Spring Barley (50ha) & Grassland in Scotland (500 ha).
Machinery
Combine, five tractors, self-propelled sprayer, two telehandlers, eight-furrow plough with mounted presses, 4m combi drill & 12-row beet drill, spring tine cultivator, fertiliser spreader, share in six-row beet harvester, baler, various potato and irrigation equipment.
Grain storage
Floor storage of 3,000t after continuous flow drier plus 1,750t on floor drying.
Other information
Patrick Dean Ltd operates a pig unit on Boothby Graffoe heath which produces around 12,500 pigs a year at a slaughter weight of 78kg from around 520 sows. The pigs are sold to Woodheads at Spalding, where fresh pork is packed for Morrisons supermarkets.
On the 500 ha of grassland in Scotland the business has 185 suckler cows and 750 breeding ewes.
One 44t lorry is also run as a commercial haulage operation delivering sugar beet in the winter and grain in the summer.