Dec 2023 I had an interesting experience last week when out crop walking on a glorious sunny afternoon. Was firstly walking through chest high flowering cover crops which were full of white, yellow and purple flowers, then moved into Oilseed rape crops dwarfed and semi hidden from view by a thick stand of berseem clover …
How I think I can achieve scalable no till organic farming Nov 2023 In my opinion the Holy Grail of farming is to find a way both to use no till drilling methods and achieve a conventional farm level of yield with no artificial inputs. One sunny summer evening, this was something I was discussing …
Regen and Tech – Hand-in-Hand Written by Daniel Davies, Arable Division at Lower Pertwood Farm – Nov 2023 The concept of regenerative agriculture is continuing to gather momentum across the globe. To me, it is clear that technology is going to play a bigger part than ever in farming, as methods continue to change and …
Trials test the tech – December 2023 On-farm trials have always played a key role in exploring new tech, and helped Simon Beddows develop a new use for John Deere’s Harvest Lab. For the past30 years I have been a farm manager, firstly in Kent and latterly in South Oxfordshire. For 25 of those years, …
I last attended the Agritechnica show in Hanover, Germany in 2019. It was my inaugural visit, and the sheer scale of it all was unlike any agricultural machinery show I had ever seen. Some of the major exhibitors boasted stands almost as large as entire UK agricultural shows. After three days of covering several miles …
Written September 2023 As I write this the sun shines, almost ironically as the cereals are all cut and only the beans remain to be harvested. It has been a very stop start affair from the very start, but not impossible, and easier and more rewarding than many around the UK have experienced. This is …
Written September 2023 Another challenging year and one I hope I don’t see a repeat of for a few years! February being such a perfect month one would expect to pay the penance in March and sure enough it was a cold wet month with little work being achieved on the land, which for somebody …
October 2023 Sustainable Farm Incentive, my experience and future plan We joined SFI pilot at the first possible opportunity, our previous entry level scheme consisting of little more that 3m margins, that never really added an awful lot to local biodiversity, had expired 2 years earlier. Countryside stewardship was the natural replacement, it was competitive, …
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 …
Septmeber 2023 Direct Driller Sept 2023 Its hot, very hot! The last few days here on the Cambs / Suffolk boarder have been blazed in 30+ degree days, summer has arrived at last and I have been able to enjoy it safe in the knowledge that harvest is done and dusted for another year. Writing …
