Last night we hopefully had the last frost of the year as the OSR is just starting to flower. I think we can finally relax with pigeon patrol. This has been relentless and my Father has spent a huge amount of time chasing them over the last few months. It seems to have paid off …
How I decided to join a carbon payment scheme Not a week goes by without another discussion about getting paid for carbon. I know that many farmers are taking a “wait and see” approach and I respect that. Above all, I understand that making a decision to enter this new market feels big and it …
Harvest has come and gone. Yields were good but could have been better had the growing season not been so variable. We had trimmed our Nitrogen rates to 160 Kg/N/Ha for wheat and OSR, but huge swings of yields within the fields told me that the yield had not been altogether determined by the fertiliser …
The good the bad and the ugly! As I sit here on the 30th November furiously tapping away to get this written for tomorrow’s deadline I reflect on what has happened since I last wrote. My last piece mentioned how well the crops looked before harvest! How things have changed in just those few short …
I was not sorry to see the end of harvest 2021. A combination of low yielding OSR, a large acreage of Firefly wheat that broke down to Septoria, disappointing Extase yields and spring barley that was flattened by August rains meant that it was not a vintage year for us. Luckily prices have compensated to …
Berwickshire farmer Neil White calls for clarity and equity in their baseline carbon audit on his farm after six years ofNo-till Harvest 2021 was, in the end, better than expected. The crops came out of the wet cold spring looking respectable, but then continually improved to culminate in some top yields and good quality grain …
What a different a year makes… Steven Lear fine tunes his arable cropping, and looks toAberdeen Angus to produce some low cost beef After the soul destroying previous two autumns when we managed to drill very little winter grain, this year has been rather refreshing. After cutting all of our spring crops in half decent …
Every year you learn something new and the last two years have been tough, and we have learnt a lot! This shows in our machinery purchases over this period. We have bought a mole plough, a drain jetter, a set of rolls with paddles and a Tech Neat Outcast catch crop spreader. These are all …
And Breathe….. a much better year After 2019 and 2020, I think we can all agree 2021 has been a much happier time to be farming. Prices are good, yields were ok to good, the autumn has been very kind, autumn establishment cracking, smiles all round in the Sly Family, turkey is on the menu …
The phrase “Regenerative agriculture” is a relative newcomer to our collective vocabulary, and although it roughly describes the type of farming I attempt to practice, it is not a phrase that sits easily with me, as it is so vulnerable to being hijacked by special interest groups, and can mean very different things to different …
