Third-generation arable farmer just south of Wakefield, working ~300 acres of sandstone land alongside the 200-acre Woolley Park Golf Club the family built in 1991. Active on Twitter as @golfnshoot. Represents Team GB in clay shooting. Featured Farmer, Direct Driller Issue 18.
Issue 18 — Featured Farmer (July 2022)
From plough to direct drill in two seasons
Up until 2020, Woolley Park’s arable was a plough-based system. The combination of an abrasive sandstone soil that visibly wore metal, plus the wet autumn 2019 / dry spring 2020 collapsing the wheat yields, pushed Philip towards change. The transition went via a Phillip Watkins Tri-till subsoiler in 2020 (which produced “possibly our best yielding rape crop we’ve ever grown”) to a 4m Opico Sky drill for autumn 2021 and growing cover crops.
“I knew we needed to do something different.”
He chose the Sky drill from press research without a demo: “I decide that the Opico Sky drill offered me everything I needed from a Direct Drill.”
Building the soil before transitioning
The change of legislation around domestic garden waste opened up access to 2,000–3,000 tonnes of compost a year for five to six years, which Philip applied alongside chopped straw incorporation:
“I knew we were beginning to see very subtle changes to our soils… By incorporating chopped straw and adding the compost, changing the soils structure has allowed me to take that step to go down the direct drill route.”
He stresses the patience required:
“You often hear farmers say they’ve tried cover crops twice and they’ve failed, so it doesn’t work, it won’t in two years. It takes three to five years, it takes time and perseverance, finding the correct plants for your soils and not just planting one or two varieties either.”
A six-way cover crop and the rye mistake
Working with his agronomist and seed supplier, Philip drilled 40 ha of a six-way cover crop into rape stubble: vetch, clover, radish, rye, phacelia and another species. The rye proved a mistake, especially in milling wheat:
“I bottled it, I sprayed it all off, barring a couple of patches in different fields, cover crop varieties are something we need to look at differently this year.”
Slug pressure on the chopped-straw mat
Slugs were the biggest pressure ever experienced on the farm — Philip attributes it to the mat of chopped straw, which in previous years would have been moved or buried. He has invested in a second-hand straw rake to test that approach for autumn 2022.
Direct drilling as a contracting opportunity
A key driver in the decision-making was the looming BPS reduction. Philip already does some contracting and saw direct drilling as a service he could offer locally to fill the BPS gap — the first year saw around 500 acres with the drill on contract.
SFI pilot farm
Woolley Park is an SFI pilot farm — Philip’s first ever environmental scheme — and he is “already starting to see a change to the ecology on the farm”.
Cropping and rotation constraint
The golf course compromised the farm’s rotation when it was built, so for years it has been a rape / wheat / wheat sequence which they are still on. A clover broadcast into wheat sadly didn’t grow this year — will be tried again as a companion crop with the drill.
Verdict so far
- Time freed up from the simpler operation matters because the farm is only part of his business
- Fuel costs cut by as much as two-thirds before counting the wear-metal saving
- Skyfall wheat looks fantastic; OSR much better than hoped
- Crops as well as they have ever done on the old system
“As ever in this job, the proof will be when it comes off the combine and over the weighbridge.”
[Source: dd-issue-18, 2026-04-13]
Issue 19 — First Direct-Drilled Harvest (October 2022)
Woolley Park’s first harvest after transitioning to direct drilling with the Opico Sky Easy Drill. On light sandy soils that never break records, the OSR hit 1.7 t/acre — the farm’s highest-yielding rape crop ever — credited to a moist seed bed at drilling, minimal flea beetle, and the dry season favouring the new system.
Wheat was more mixed: the July heat drove Skyfall to 3.5 t/acre and Skyscraper to 3.4 t/acre. Despite an 8-day rain delay at the start of harvest and a minor combine fire, it was “probably some of the best harvesting conditions we’ve ever experienced”.
The Mzuri Rezult stubble rake experiment
Straight into cover-crop establishment with a 7.5 m Mzuri Rezult stubble rake trial — running at 12–15 kph at a slight angle to tramlines to even out the gap left by the combine chopper between the straw mats. It also “encouraged a chit by slightly scratching the soil surface”.
Cover mix: radish 3 kg/ha, common vetch 14 kg/ha, phacelia 2.25 kg/ha, clover 3 kg/ha, linseed 8.75 kg/ha, buckwheat 12 kg/ha. Anastasia OSR drilled 31 August at 4.5 kg/ha.
The biggest shift: fuel use 4.5–5.5 L/ha on the drill — about two-thirds less than the old plough system.
“Direct Drilling not only reduces the time spent drilling, it allows for choosing the optimal timing for going drilling. Harvest 2022 has been one of the easiest in memory… if this is what the future looks like, then so far, I’m convinced.”
[Source: dd-issue-19, 2026-04-13]
Issue 21 — Frost, Pigeons and the Ploughing Match (April 2023)
A chastened spring column. Winter dragged into spring with confused timing — 5 inches of snow fell on 10 March, just after Philip applied 85 kg N/ha to the wheats and OSR. Wheats look well; second wheats initially patchy but even now.
A university visit
Dr Ruth Wade and Professor Ruth Chapman from Leeds University visited in January to see how the soils had changed since their previous visit. The striking field-scale comparison — wheat after OSR into cover crop vs wheat into ploughed and cultivated ground — had the researchers noting the field that could be walked without picking up mud on boots.
OSR under pressure
Pigeons and slugs hit every field; more than half of one field won’t make a crop and is being replanted with a cover crop for autumn. For 2023 Philip is considering increased seed rates and slug pellet rates only in the worst areas at drilling. He also noted that the field rowed with the Mzuri Rezult stubble rake (discs set shallow) had significantly higher plant population than the rest of the farm.
A small confession
“Now, I know that the plough is looked upon by some, in Direct Drilling circles, as the devil’s tool!” Woolley Park hosts the Barugh and District Ploughing Association, as it has for over 40 years. Philip continues to support the event as a matter of keeping countryside traditions alive, “irrespective of how we choose to grow our crops.”
One observation that amused him: glyphosate had little effect on the cover-crop radish over winter — only frost did. “Resilience of radish… it keeps on growing!”
[Source: dd-issue-21, 2026-04-13]
Appearances
Issues 18 (Featured Farmer), 19, 21, 23, 27
Related Pages
- Cover Crop Species Guide — The lesson on rye as a problem species
- Conservation Agriculture — Core Principles — Five-to-seven year transition model
- No-Till Economics — Benchmarking and Cost of Production — Two-thirds fuel saving as a transition data point
- Direct Drills — Types, Manufacturers and Comparisons — Opico Sky drill in service