Unusually dry weather has caused headaches for many farmers and our south-west Management Matters farm is no exception. Paul Spackman reports

Cereal yields could be down by as much as one third at Clinton Devon Farms this harvest if George Perrott’s concerns are realised.

A “triple-whammy” of a harsh winter, followed by a cold, dry spring and a “scorching” June has hit both arable crops and grassland hard, particularly as much of the 2500-acre estate lies on drought-prone sandy loam soil.

“Wheat still looks green and if we get rain it should still do some good, but I hate to think what some of the other crops will yield like,” he says. “At one point the wheats after clover looked very good and should have done 2t/acre, but I doubt we’ll be near that now.”

His fears for arable yields have not been helped by what he describes as “mediocre” first-cut silage and “lean” second-cut yields. In total about 1500t of silage has been made so far, compared with over 2000t normally at this time of year. “Most autumn re-seeded leys are not yielding what we’d expect – the grass and clover is there, but it’s been very slow to get going. Where we’ve grazed leys and they’ve been slow growing, grass yields have been down to 5t/acre, whereas the better land that hasn’t been grazed has done nearer 12.25t/acre.”

The lack of decent grazing for the farm’s two 250-cow herds means remaining hay and silage stocks are being rapidly used up to provide supplementary feed. But despite this, Mr Perrott has no plans to change his forage strategy this season.

“We’ll stick with our plan to make wholecrop silage just out of the weedy crops and those originally designated for silage – about 200 acres in total. I want to make sure there are enough cereals to combine, rather than worry too much about filling the clamps now.

“It’s better to have a barn full of grain and straw, because the grass will come back eventually and we can potentially cut silage until quite late in the autumn [November in some years] – that’s the flipside of having the light land that’s burnt off now.”

Straw prices are also “going through the roof” with prices for wheat straw in the £70s per acre and barley over £100/acre, he says. “Even if the grain yield’s not there, at least we should get some straw.”

To help the forage situation, Mr Perrott says he will not mulch third-year grass/clover leys this year and he is also selling lambs as soon as they reach the target deadweight of 20kg to reduce pressure on grazing. About 400 of the 1800 lambs have been sold so far, with most achieving a 10% organic premium. Prices are around £4/kg dwt, he notes.

The estate is also holding back about 130-140t of old crop grain in store and nothing will be sold forward from this harvest until Mr Perrott has a better idea of how crop’s will yield. “We’ve been quoted about £200/t for wheat and £130/t for oats, but they tell me there isn’t the demand out there at the moment. So it makes sense to feed the oats to our cows and perhaps sell some of the wheat later. But I don’t want to commit anything until I know exactly what we’ve got to be harvested.”

Higher Level ambitions

Clinton Devon Farms is in the process of joining the Higher Level Stewardship scheme. An initial assessment was made last December and the Farm Environment Plan has just been completed by a specialist consultant, paid for under the HLS scheme. “We’ve tried to do as much of the work ourselves, but the application process is very in-depth and requires a lot of time and effort. It’s only been made workable by having an experienced consultant,” Mr Perrott says.

The decision to join HLS was both economic and environmental. The Clinton family have always wanted as much environmental improvement as possible, he says. “But what’s driven it for me is that turning organic and becoming more extensive has highlighted the marginal areas of the farm even more. If we can cut back effort on those areas and get paid for it, everyone’s a winner.”

The only slight concern is whether HLS will become a victim of the government’s budget cuts, due to be confirmed in this autumn’s spending review. “We were worried the whole HLS would be cut and we wouldn’t get on to it at all. But that doesn’t appear to be the case.” It hasn’t escaped altogether though. Any capital works will have to be done in the first three years, as capital funding required beyond that will not be paid for under the scheme, Mr Perrott notes. “It’s not such an issue as we’ll just work out what needs doing and split the work into thirds in each of the first three years.”

Slurry store update

Plans to build a new 24,000cu m slurry store and handling system are progressing well, although groundwork is unlikely to start as early as Mr Perrott had initially hoped (FW, 30 April). A full planning application has just been submitted and the estate’s trustees will be consulted shortly.

Meanwhile, the estate has just had its application for a “Soils for profit” grant accepted and will go ahead with plans to buy a new 15m dribble bar for slurry applications. It has also been given an £8000 Catchment Sensitive Farming grant, which will help fund the construction of a roof over one of the farm’s manure stores to cut the amount of rainwater entering the slurry/manure system.

“The roof will cost about £12,000 in total, so we’ll have to spend about £4000 of our own money, but it’s got to be worth it,” Mr Perrott says. “Keeping rainwater out of the system reduces the potential for effluent leaks and cuts the volume of dirty water we have to store and handle.”

More information on other Management Matters farms

More information on Clinton Devon Farms