Farmer Focus: I’m now part of the sugar beet 100t/ha club

I’m going to start this column with some positives, because in these challenging times, I think it’s important not to forget that it’s rare that everything is rubbish at the same time.

Since my last column, I have sold the last of our surplus sugar beet and calculated the resultant yield.

I’ve been close a time or two over the years, but finally, I can report that I am a member of the hundred-tonne club! The yield was 101.89t/ha, to be exact.

See also: Farmer Focus: Winter oats are the best-looking crop on the farm

About the author

Andrew Wilson

Arable Farmer Focus writer Andrew Wilson is a fourth-generation tenant of Castle Howard Estate in North Yorkshire. The farm supports crops of wheat, barley, oats, beans, sugar beet, potatoes, and grass for hay across 250ha. Other enterprises include bed and breakfast pigs, environmental stewardship, rooftop solar and contracting work.  

Contact:

Email: wilsonbrickyard@gmail.com

X: https://twitter.com/SpudSlingsby

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It’s taken some doing, but that’s where we need to be now. Granted, fertiliser placement had to take second place to get drilled up before potato planting commenced when the fertiliser pump on my drilling rig decided to blow its oil seals out. It’s not a perfect world.

Having applied 90% of my theoretical maximum N to my winter cereals by very early April, recent rains and clean crops with the prospect for greater performance have me considering a foliar nitrogen top-up to push yield on a bit.

I’m sat on the fence, to be honest. There is no point spending a quid to gain 90 pence, but it won’t work if we don’t put it on. I guess, true to form, that we’ll try a bit and see what the yield maps say in due course.

Recent rain and prices slowly lifting are my main drivers, and I’m looking at things on a field-by-field basis – some require a minimum cost approach, and others have the potential to be pushed on a good bit yet.

As ever, in any crop, it is the marginal gains that make the difference between an “is that it?” harvest, and a good one.

Potato planting was completed here in good moist warm conditions by 12 May, which is just about perfect for us.

The first crops planted with chitted seed were out of the ground in three weeks and motoring on nicely, which is good to see. Row damming and pipe laying will start in the next few days, alongside drilling the pollinator strips.

After a day or two off, my team and I are busy cleaning and appraising spring kit, getting ready for hay time, harvest, irrigation, and doing some preparation for our centenary celebrations next month. We haven’t got time to get bored, that’s for sure.