Farmer focus contributor appearing in 3 issues. Featured farmer in Issue 19 (October 2022).
Appearances
Issues 19 (featured), 21, 27
[Sources: dd-issue-19 through dd-issue-27]
Issue 19 — Featured Farmer: A Somerset Transition (October 2022)
John’s introductory appearance as Featured Farmer. He farms 245 ha plus 40 ha woodland in West Somerset in partnership with his brother Charlie — arable, sheep and diversification, on sandy-loam “hungry” soil with low CEC and low OM. Rainfall averages 850–900mm but the last three years were 1,200mm.
Background
Father ran beef until 1999; contractors then did the arable work and grassland was rented out. When John came back to the farm he inherited soils that were “overworked and under loved” — plough until 2000, then a min-till tine-and-disc system with a contractor’s Väderstad Rapid. “At the time it all looked lovely and a perfect seed bed, but often the weather that followed was the down fall of the system.”
System Today
- Second-hand 4 m Horsch Sprinter with Duetts removed and fitted with 4″ and 2″ Bourgault points (pulled by 150 hp)
- All crops now direct drilled; targeted subsoiling only
- Stopped using sewage sludge (concerns over chemical residues from cleaning products)
- Chops all straw; no balers onto the farm (blackgrass-free and keen to stay that way)
- Cover crops: phacelia, vetch, radish, berseem clover at ~£25/ha, mixed on farm
- AHDB benchmarking showed chemical costs £40/ha higher than group average on a lower-yielding farm — triggered switch to an independent agronomist
- No insecticides for 4 years; BYDV no worse than before; stopped all seed dressings
- N reduced from 220 kg to 170 kg on wheat; liquid fertiliser with added fulvic and humic acids
- 500-ewe Exlana flock bought September 2021 — livestock returned to the farm to graze cover crops and winter cereals
Living Mulch / Clover Experiment
In 2019 wrote off 2 part-fields of OSR and wheat; used the failure to establish a small-leaved white clover understorey, drilled with a Horizon DSX demo on 16 mm overnight rain. The wheat looked outstanding; 125 kg N; no PGR; no fungicides — just nutrition. Yield disappointing at 6.2 t/ha (clover failed to nodulate in the cold spring). Winter oats following the wheat/clover were noticeably greener where the clover had been.
“My advice would be to get the right people around you to help you with the direction you want to go, if they don’t want to change then replace them. Try things out on a small scale, don’t feel you need to be spending lots of £££ on new DD drills or expensive cover crops mixes. There is no quick fix… if the mind won’t change it won’t work.”
[Source: dd-issue-19, 2026-04-13]
Issue 21 — Sheep, Maize and Moisture (April 2023)
A short update a season on. Harvest 2022 was a mixed bag: spring beans direct-drilled into grazed cover crop yielded 5 t/ha — John credits the direct drilling and cover-crop residue for retaining moisture. Winter oats gave a 0.3 t/acre advantage on the grazed field vs ungrazed Sandybanks. Strip-till maize into cover crop was a success; grazed by sheep in late January and being expanded this spring.
Over half the wheat area was grazed with ewe lambs through Jan/Feb to stretch a short forage supply. Half-field trials split by electric fence showed the wheat bouncing back within days of the sheep moving off — you could “see the darker wheat patches from the sheep’s excrement.”
333 mm of rain fell between mid-December and mid-January, forcing John to buy silage in and bale-graze the last block of turnips rather than moving the flock onto grass early. The wider tension he writes about: cover crops for soil diversity vs forage crops for dry-matter feed value. Their compromise this year is adding vetch and berseem clover into the turnips to get some of both.
[Source: dd-issue-21, 2026-04-13]