July 2023 Colleymore is a National Trust farm that forms part of the Coleshill and Buscot estate. My family and I arrived here in 2021, having lived and farmed in France. Of the 295Ha, around ¼ is permanent grass. The rest is Grade 3 arable, predominantly clay. It shares the same characteristics as the clay …
As I sit here on the last day of May writing this article it is blowing a gale outside and has been for quite a long time now. Our soils have gone from drenched at the beginning of May to having the life sucked out of them at the end of the month. It really …
By Wilfred Mole, Lower Pertwood Farm, Wiltshire. The debate continues between arable farmers worldwide who feel that they should remain conventional, in the traditional sense, and a growing number of farmers who are convinced that Regenerative (“Regen”) is the way forward. The small Organic arable sector is also questioning their role, due to the fact that …
The Regen/Organic Conundrum from a Farmer’s viewpoint Read More »
Well, it’s always interesting sitting down to write an article and thinking of things to wax lyrical about. Quite often, the farmer contributions are all about success stories! Like how to grow 12 tons per hectare of 13% milling wheat on 20 kilos of N and an application of home-brewed compost tea, how a 15-way …
Completing my last ever BPS application last month really got me thinking about the financial future of our farm. We all know the era of the Basic Payment Scheme and money for simply owning land is drawing to a close. So, what does the future look like and how can we ensure that our businesses …
Written 1st June 2023 Trials and learnings of livestock integration at BHF. So, calving happened, with a few more issues than we expected. Through our breeding choices we have managed to significantly reduce the level of human intervention at calving over the last 5 years. However, we hit a small bump in the road this …
July 2023 With my year as 2022 FSOOTY winner coming to an end here are a few thoughts on the spring workload and how the new sprayer has performed. First off, I’m Steve May and I work for Fromant and Sanders at Kislingbury near Northampton, a family arable farm with extra contracting work in the …
As a farmer, I have always been interested in new technologies that could make my job easier and more efficient. One of the most exciting new technologies in agriculture today is Artificial Intelligence (AI). AI is a broad term that encompasses many different technologies such as machine learning, natural language processing, and robotics. These technologies …
April 2023 Edition When Chris asked me to write this article, I gravitated into panic mode because this is a quiet part of the year and I was not sure what to write about, however we seem to have been continuously busy, so I had better fill you in on our out of season activities. …
April 2023 As this magazine is entitled Direct Driller I’ll start off with a couple of drill comments. The CO4 has had a set of replacement Dutch 2” tips fitted as the first set had worn very thin in places and changing the odd failed one resulted in uneven depth across the drill. I’d deliberated …
