Philip Bradshaw — Farmer Focus Writer

Philip and Jayne Bradshaw farm 220 ha of mainly skirt fen land in three blocks around Peterborough, 30% owned and 70% rented. The home block at Whittlesey is worked on a Conservation Agriculture basis with classic machinery; smaller distant parcels are managed by a collaborator/contractor. Philip also undertakes farm-management consultancy off-farm. Featured Farmer, Direct Driller Issue 17.

📰 Read articles by Philip Bradshaw — Skirt Fen, Whittlesey, Cambridgeshire on Direct Driller → View author archive

Issue 17 — Featured Farmer (April 2022)

From council farm tenancy to Conservation Ag

Started farming in 1989 with their first tenancy on a 33 ha county council farm — equipped the entire operation for under �10,000 including a 15-year-old combine for �1,500, both also working off-farm at the time. Two moves of farm later, an inherited share of the family farm, and a small acquisition give the present 220 ha business.

Stopped ploughing about 10 years before the article, moving to shallow tillage with a Väderstad Carrier plus subsoiling as required. With hindsight he says “I didn’t realise at the time, but this was a good way of preparing our soils for the move to no tillage.”

The Weaving GD via a LEADER grant

Philip believes he was possibly the first LEADER-funded direct drill in the country. The Fens LEADER scheme was part of the Rural Development Programme aimed at sustainability, soil protection and GHG reduction. The grant of over �13,500 funded a new British-built Weaving GD 3m disc coulter direct drill, which arrived in July 2016 just in time for the annual KWS variety open day where 50 visiting farmers got to inspect it. This launched the “No-Till in the Fens” knowledge-transfer project that the grant required.

“I knew then that I would have liked two drills, one tine, and one disc, but could only afford one, and plumped for disc.”

Regrets not buying a larger trailed version. Bought a second-hand front tyre press for the front linkage to consolidate fluffy lighter soils and counter the weight of the mounted drill.

The 40-year-old Howard Paraplow

For �600 he bought a 40-year-old Howard Paraplow specifically to alleviate compaction on field headlands and sidelands caused by machinery turning. The system worked so well that yield maps now sometimes show paraplowed headlands outyielding field middles — meaning he is “not afraid of paraplowing a whole field should it be necessary”.

LEADER inspection in 2017

After the harvest, the RPA selected the farm for a post-LEADER grant inspection. The application had claimed cost savings, fuel savings, GHG reductions and knowledge transfer — and accounts analysis showed all four targets surpassed:

  • 95% of harvest 2017 crops direct drilled
  • Yields right up to 5-year average (except some heavy-land beans), at considerably reduced costs
  • 180 stakeholders engaged through open days
  • Fuel-savings-derived GHG savings comfortably hit the GHG target

The current setup

  • Weaving GD disc drill (now in 6th season, recently fitted with new closing wheels/tyres and bearings)
  • Weaving Sabretine — second-hand 2013, overhauled and upgraded by Philip last year
  • 5-leg paraplow
  • All drills + paraplow fitted with liquid fertiliser/amendment kits from SK Sprayers Ltd, fed from a front tank made from a second-hand Knight front sprayer tank
  • Old trailed press for paraplow consolidation
  • Heavy hydraulic-paddle rolls used post-drilling and as a straw rake
  • Own combine (~20 years old) and own self-propelled sprayer

Rotation and inputs

Typically wheat / second wheat or winter barley / OSR or oats / wheat / beans, with catch crops between wheats and biological soil/plant support. Successful second wheat now yielding virtually as much as the first wheat.

  • No P&K from a bag, no lime, for over 7 years — field indices and pH stable or improving
  • “Still wonder if we could be very slowly mining our soils of nutrients, but the strategy seems to be improving soils rather than depleting them, and we have at least 5 species of worms in increasing numbers”
  • N cut by ~25% last year; aiming to cut more
  • Tyre pressure trials with Philip Wright (Wright Resolutions): Bridgestone VF tyres run down to ~0.65 bar on the drill tractor

Working with Wright Resolutions and Strutt & Parker

Long-standing on-farm trials work with Philip Wright (consultancy + tyre pressure / soil loosening / biological soil management trials). Agronomy from Rob Wilkinson (Strutt and Parker) plus refinements from Ian Robertson (Sustainable Soil Management) on biological soil management.

A clover-living-mulch attempt

Has tried establishing clover ahead of spring beans to keep as a living mulch. “It may not be quite good enough due to the lack of moisture at establishment” — but he’s persevering.

“We are enjoying our journey into Conservation Ag and learning a huge amount as we go along… we wouldn’t farm if we were not optimists!”

[Source: dd-issue-17, 2026-04-13]

Issue 19 — Harvest 2022, Trials and Low-Input Wheat (October 2022)

A harvest debrief and trials column. Winter barley averaged 10 t/ha weighbridge across farms — “our best barley ever”. Winter wheat on both farms averaged well over 10 t/ha; KWS Extase and Firefly first-wheats hit 11 t/ha; KWS Zyatt second-wheat at 10 t/ha lifted the rotational margin. Spring beans however were disappointing at 2.56 t/ha — “half what we used to yield a few years ago” — with the super-hot July days effectively killing the crop off.

Tyre pressure and paraplow trials with Philip Wright

A repeat of the previous year’s tyre pressure trial showed low and medium drill-tractor pressures close to untrafficked land, but a significant yield loss at high pressure. The paraplow + biological amendments trial gave the more interesting result: the unmoved control had a substantial yield penalty versus the loosened land, and paraplowed plots with biological amendments marginally beat paraplowed-only — suggesting a cumulative effect worth persisting with.

Low-input wheat trial

On a whim, Philip left 2 ha of a 12 ha KWS Extase field on just 46 kgN/ha (single N1 liquid dose) with reduced fungicide and PGR. The weighbridge-calibrated yield monitor gave 12.24 t/ha for the low-input area vs 12.36 t/ha for the normal-treatment control (110 kgN/ha). Protein was lower on the low-input area — a consideration for milling. His conclusion: push N lower still on skirt-fen next year.

“The inflation in our costs, including last year’s rent rise, is substantial, and the risks associated with farming now are more significant than ever.”

Catch/cover crops planted at half the planned area using the GD drill (not the Sabretine) to preserve moisture. The clover living-mulch ahead of beans had failed — like the August-drilled OSR — because the rain never came.

[Source: dd-issue-19, 2026-04-13]

Issue 21 — Quality Establishment and a Clover Survivor (April 2023)

Autumn 2022 focused on getting the highest-quality establishment he could: paraplowed the land that wasn’t done the previous year and reconsolidated with the front single press + trailed double press (£4,000 combined). First-ever commercial mustard crop drilled with the GD went in nicely, avoided flea beetle, and entered winter looking well — but was mostly killed by the December/January frosts and is being redrilled as spring mustard.

Heavy off-farm work in October/November meant wheat drilling didn’t finish until December 9th, a month later than planned, yet almost all the crop came well, and Philip was pleased to be driving across good-looking wheat applying a small dose of liquid N a few weeks before writing.

The clover living-mulch discovery

A rare good news story on the clover understorey. Philip had assumed the clover planted in August 2021 ahead of spring beans 2022 had failed completely — but on a closer inspection:

“Recently though, I discovered that there is some still growing, and starting to spread as hoped across the field.”

Not consistent enough within the field to rule out a broadleaf herbicide if it becomes necessary, but the principle of a nitrogen-fixing understorey remains “completely sound” to him. A rare recorded ITV News soundbite appearance followed — and the day before the interview aired, a neighbour’s fen was blowing soil in high winds, underlining why soil cover matters.

[Source: dd-issue-21, 2026-04-13]

Appearances

Issues 17 (Featured Farmer), 19, 21, 25

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