Andrew Keeler
Andrew Keeler
Andrew Keeler farms with
his parents at Church Farm,
Aylsham, Norfolk. Sugar
beet, potatoes, winter
wheat and premium malting
barley are grown on the
32ha (80-acre) farm
OUR target date for the start of the potato harvest – Sept 24 – came and went without a single spud lifted.
Only on Oct 5 did ground conditions permit us to proceed and then we only managed a day and a half before 10mm (0.4in) in a matter of minutes brought operations to an abrupt halt. It was a week before we got back in.
The potatoes we have in store, all Desiree, so far look quite good with little scab and a good skin finish. We stone-pick the field at planting so we have decided to run the harvester without any people on board. But to keep a check that all is running smoothly we have invested in a closed-circuit television, mounted so that we can view the picking table and feed elevator from the cab. So far it has worked well and should pay for itself in the first year.
All the winter barley, again Maris Otter, has been drilled with our Minimat furrow-press drill, ploughing, pressing and drilling in one pass. It went into a good seed-bed at 146kg/ha (1.2cwt/acre) and the first shoots were through within a week. After the barley we moved on to setting the Gerald oats but could not use the Minimat because the ground was quite a bit wetter. The power-harrow combination drill was used instead, drilling at 157kg/ha (1.25cwt/acre).
Four loads of sugar beet have been harvested and delivered to the factory. Returns show we sent 96t of beet with an average sugar content of 16.5%, top tare of 9% and dirt tare 7%. On the whole the results were quite pleasing, the high top tare figure not unexpected as the large beet made setting the topper difficult. We had hoped the sugar content would be higher but at least we are on the right side of 16% and are getting added clean tonnage and not reductions. I have heard that some crops in the area are only mid-15% sugar. *
Winter barley and oats are drilled and four loads of beet have been lifted at Church Farm. "On the whole results are quite pleasing," says Andrew Keeler.