Archive Article: 2000/07/21
Mike Rowland
Mike Rowlands 141ha
(350-acre) Bowden Farm,
Burbage, Wilts, is in organic
conversion, with 32ha (80
acres) fully organic from
Oct 99. Potatoes, carrots,
wheat and peas will rotate
with grass for suckler cows.
At Amesbury 404ha (1000
acres) is in conventional
seed production
IS the grass on the other side of the fence greener? After a recent Flying Farmers tour to eastern Europe my conclusion is No.
Our first visit was to a 2000ha (4940-acre) farm near Prague, run with a minimum of staff and equipment. Overheads, variable costs and yields are all lower than here. With no EU aid and world market prices they are, at present, only in a break-even situation. However, there is cheap land and one can see there is a tremendous future potential.
Next stop was Salzburg, Austria, at an organic farm. Two families incomes are generated on one 26ha (64-acre) farm with dairy, beef, cereal and vegetable enterprises. One could see the way they made their money was by selling their own and other peoples products through their farm shop. It was amazing to see how much new machinery they had. One can only surmise that there is more state help than is let on about.
Back home, and I have to ask where has summer gone? Exceptional rain and cold, and a lack of sun, will, I suspect, give us disappointing yields this year. Last weekend we combined our conventional Pearl winter barley, which is going for malting, and the yield at 7.4t/ha (3t/acre) is only satisfactory. Moisture was down to 14% by the end of the day, with brackling causing many ears to be lost on the ground.
Our 4ha (10 acres) of organic potatoes look extremely well and weed-free, but intense blight pressure is a worry, prompting two half-rate Bordeaux mixture applications. Organic Hereward wheat, being grown for seed, has septoria on the lower leaves and will lose yield due to weeds, the worst being Italian ryegrass. That will have to be excluded from our ley mixtures in future and we will start harrowing weeds earlier next year.
This autumn we should have an unprecedented wealth of cereal variety and disease information for our organic selections, thanks to trials at Elm Farm Research Centre, the ARC, NIAB, and several other local trials. All very exciting.
Pleased to have started harvest, Wilts grower Mike Rowland says yields are only satisfactory.