The good, the bad and the downright ugly is the only way I can describe the state of our autumn drilled crops as we head into the spring. Throughout the later stages of 2023 as a result of the unrelenting rain I was pitifully watching our area of cereals for next harvest diminishing by the day.
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 …
Written by Jeff Claydon April 2023 Issue Spring is the ideal time to check your soils and consider how to improve them, says Jeff Claydon, Suffolk arable farmer and inventor of the Claydon Opti-Till® direct strip seeding system. Spring is an excellent time to focus on soil health and how to improve it, because regardless …
Written by Rosalind Platt, managing director of UK leaders in crop nutrition, BFS Fertiliser Services. BFS is celebrating its 75th anniversary this year. Foliar nitrogen fertiliser treatments later in the season can dramatically reduce the total amount of nitrogen needed while maintaining or increasing crop yields. The recent turmoil in the fertiliser market has …
April 2023 Following on from my 1st article in Direct Driller last summer, a bit of a summary of what’s been happening since. Harvest 2022 was a bumper harvest for some, but I have also heard mixed results which is the camp we fell into. Our spring beans and maize were our crops that stood …
The latest Cereals Agri-Outlook takes stock of the current situation and looks forward to what we might expect in the coming months, for supply availability, trade and demand. The volumes below are estimates at the time of writing. Production Wheat supply on the global market remains constrained, from the lasting impact of extreme weather trimming …
Home-made compost, massively reduced tillage and determined cover cropping have been central to the single-minded drive to improve the arable sustainability of the Green Horizons Network farm at Salford Lodge, Pitchill just outside Evesham over the past decade. A combination of challenging silty clay land contract-farmed with heavy kit for many years and lighter sandy …
Soil-Centred Worcestershire Sustainability Drive Read More »
Written By Sarah Hill and originally published by No-Till Farmer in the USA The combination of a 3-way crop rotation, covers and grazing is resulting in big savings by reducing the number of tillage passes, increasing yields and improving soil health. Pictured Above: SHORT GROWING SEASON. No-tiller Kurt Stiefvater has a very short fall season to get cover …
January 2023 What livestock means at BHF? Balbirnie Home Farms in hand farming operation comprises some 1200ha, two thirds of which is in an arable rotation, the remainder is permanent grass. Additionally, there is 380ha woodland and commercial forestry. The arable rotation currently consists of winter wheat, winter and spring beans, winter and spring oats, …
January 2023 As I write on this very wet December day (yes very last minute) it’s nice to look back on such a dry year. I wrote in June that the area looked the best it had ever looked, crops were full of potential, and for once they carried that into what was our record-breaking …
