Arable Farmer Focus FARMER FOCUSFarmer Focus: Why I wish I hadn't drilled any oilseed rapeIt felt like a mini milestone at Lockerley over the past week as we planted some clover/grass leys in our arable rotation and spread home-produced manure in front of a… FARMER FOCUSFarmer Focus: A peek at my harvest diary from 1987What a summer; at the time of writing (4 September) we still have 100ha of beans to harvest. High yields, laid crops and desperately frustrating weather have literally left us… FARMER FOCUSFarmer Focus: £3bn farm support is good value for moneyAugust was a month of two halves. The first half was very wet and left us panicking about the plight of our crops and then, to great relief, the second… FARMER FOCUSFarmer Focus: Sitona weevils are eating my cloverUnless something goes horribly wrong, by the time you read this, harvest 2019 will be finished at Shimpling Park Farm. Our combine has been incredibly reliable this year (touching all… FARMER FOCUSFarmer Focus: Stick together in fight against rural crimeLike for everyone else trying to earn a living from the land, it has been a busy summer, with minimal downtime. They say striving for success without hard work is… FARMER FOCUSFarmer Focus: Borage swathe is like cold treacleHarvest continues with yields above budget, but quality has been a bit mixed. We had a go with some white wheat for a local miller to make a golden wholemeal… FARMER FOCUSFarmer Focus: New combine delivers but subsoiler demo falls flatThe harvest weather has finally improved, with the unsettled weather of the first three weeks of August giving way to something more like summer. Unlike last year when our yields… FARMER FOCUSFarmer Focus: Serious storage fire hasn’t hampered harvestHarvest has been proceeding at a pace. Yields look reasonably promising, although there are still too many heaps around the place to have final measured totals yet. We have a… FARMER FOCUSFarmer Focus: Rethinking our weed strategy this autumnWe were flying along with harvest, finishing the wheat about the earliest we ever have, and then the rain hit. We’ve only manged a few hours in the past 10… FARMER FOCUSFarmer Focus: Testing the waters with 26ha of hempWe spend our winter here at Valetta shifting break fences for sheep on winter feed crops of kale, swedes and oats. Currently we have 14 to shift every morning, so… FARMER FOCUSFarmer Focus: OSR area increasing despite flea beetle threatHarvest is proving to be very stop-start. It started very well, but unreliable weather reports and very localised heavy showers whenever the wheat is almost dry have slowed progress. While… FARMER FOCUSFarmer Focus: Cover crops staying ahead of flea beetleCereal harvest results are now in. Winter barley produced a thin sample on the lightest of land, with an average yield. However, the six-row hybrid on some of our heavier… More articles
