Keith Challen’s new dog performs at first proper shoot
It barely feels like the combine has been away for two minutes and the kids are writing Christmas lists already – iPads, iPhones, iMacs… I need to remortgage by the sounds of it.
I’ve just come back from a week in Cyprus, hoping to find the UK has dried up. No such luck, the oilseed rape hasn’t moved and the wheat has gone backwards. Oh the joys of farming. Joking apart, crops this year will take some managing.
Looking to the future, I’m worried about our current rotation of wheat and oilseed rape. Slug pressure this year is unprecedented and rape yields have almost stalled, but with very heavy clay soils I just can’t see a viable alternative. Gross margin is king, a little more research is on the cards I think.
Many thanks to Simon Parrington and his team at SOYL for putting on a brilliant winter workshop, they have finally found a use for all those years of yield mapping in the form of “performance mapping”. A very useful-looking tool, the more I learn about precision farming the more I’m convinced it’s an important part of sustainable agriculture. Knowledge is power!
Well that fateful day arrived, super dog’s first proper shoot, I don’t know who was more anxious – Millie or me. I took Becky, my older lab, who’s an old pro at the shooting game or so I thought. First drive and Millie’s sat looking like she’s spent the summer at gun dog school, while Becky, in her wisdom, decided it would be more fun to trot off into the cover and cause mayhem. I couldn’t believe it, let down by my old faithful. I put it down to that old female trait, jealousy.
Keith Challen manages 800ha of heavy clay soils in the Vale of Belvoir, Leicestershire, for Belvoir Fruit Farms. Cropping includes wheat, oilseed rape and elderflowers. The farm is also home to the Belvoir Fruit Farms drinks business.
