Phil Rowbottom, Woolley, West Yorkshire A Five-Year Journey into Direct Drilling It’s been five years now. Five years since we parked up the plough and put our faith in direct drilling. It’s a big leap of faith, I can tell you. You go from a nice, clean, ploughed field to drilling into what looks like …
Dry Weather Challenges Across the Rotation By Phil Rowbottom, for Direct Driller Magazine It’s fair to say that 2025 has been a year of extremes — and not in a good way. The dry spring and early summer have had a telling impact across every crop on the farm, and this season’s challenges have tested …
Jan 2025 Listen to the article below – 5 minutes 31 seconds It’s been a while since I last wrote a Farmer focus article in Direct Driller magazine. Harvest 24’ Seems like a long time ago, yet we’re now closer to the next harvest than we were the last. 2024 On the farm was a …
March 2024 It feels like a very long time since my last ramblings in the October issue of Direct Driller magazine. I’m sure I’m not the only one that thought we’d never experience another winter like we had in 2019, the wettest on record at the time! While winter 2023/24 may not have seen the …
October 2023 A year in farming is a long time, and blimey what a difference a year makes! 2022 and 2023 could not have been different in terms of weather! This year had the hallmarks of the previous two years, a relatively dry winter and spring looking as if it would continue the trend, and …
April 2023 Winter seems to have finally turned to spring in West Yorkshire, if not a little confused about its timeline! Having had very little in the way of snow all winter, 5 inches arrived on the 10th of March, just over a week after applying 85kg per ha of nitrogen to the wheats and …
October 2022 The build up to harvest is always mixed with a bit of trepidation and excitement, this year was no exception, Harvest 2022 was our first harvest following direct drilling with the Opico Sky Easy Drill. After the hard work and cost of growing a crop, there’s always a bit of uncertainty of how …
Philip Rowbottom, is a 3rd generation farmer arable farmer from West Yorkshire. Some of you may know him as @golfnshoot on Twitter, so it may not surprise you to learn he also owns Woolley Park Golf club and represents team GB in Clay shooting. Here he explains his transition over to Direct Drilling from a …
