farming Archives - Page 3 of 3

Mornings are becoming lighter as day length increases with the tempting hint that spring is coming. Some days are lovely bright and clear, with birds starting to sing and snow drops making an appearance after the long winter nights. Then we have another day of rain falling on saturated soils, just to remind me that spring is not here yet and my hopes of getting to the fields to start our spring planting of crops are still some way off.

I find this time of year frustrating as our heavy clay soils need time to dry out before we can work on them. But if like last year the wet winter persists, April will soon upon us before the crops are in the ground and there is the feeling of fighting a loosing battle with nature, as time runs out for the plants to grow well. Anyway, there is still plenty of time to wait for a few days of sunshine to dry the soils out and bring them back to life after winter.

Until then we have been busy with a couple of winter projects in the workshop. Firstly we have converted an old grain trailer, giving it a new lease of life to transport our digger to different fields. Father and Marvin have cut and welded steel into place and now it is ready for a coast of paint to finish the job off.

The second main project has been the laying of a new drying floor in the grain store. This is a major investment that will dry the crops once it is harvested by blowing warm air through a perforated wood and metal floor. The principle is a bit like a hairdryer, but the scale is somewhat bigger, as the floor is capable of drying around 400tonnes of grain at a time. The floor is laid and now just needs finishing off by laying concrete around the edges. The concrete is ordered and when it arrives, it will be all hands to the deck manning wheel barrows to get the concrete from the lorry to the back of the barn in good time, hopefully without spilling any. If all goes to plan it will be a bit like a synchronised wheelbarrow derby.

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Farming Diary

From LEAF Demonstration Farmer Duncan Farrington

Sometimes I just have to spend a few undisturbed days in the office with my head buried in spreadsheets trying to do some strategy planning for the future of the business. As well as being vitally important, I do enjoy trying to work out the best way for all the pieces of the jigsaw to fit together.

Firstly I will be updating my whole farm Environmental Policy. This document is all about what we stand for and looks at everything from water resources and wildlife, to staff and the machinery choices we make on the farm. It is a true record of where we are as a business, as well as putting some targets for the following year. I update this annually, following discussions of what our ambitions are for the year.

Then there are the cash flow forecasts that need completing for this year and next, a vital tool to help give an indication of where and when the money is going to come from and what we will have left to invest. Farming, like any other business, does not have a crystal ball, particularly when it comes to predicting future weather and commodity trends, but it does give me an indication to start planning around.

Business planning is a combination of strategy, mixed with plenty of compromise, a bit of aspiration and a realisation that not everything can be done at once. For example over the last couple of years the farm has had to cut back its shopping list drastically due to a poor harvest two years ago. The tractor we recently bought, I wanted last year, but couldn’t afford. Now I am looking at the investments required for the next two years and trying to prioritise those, whilst trying to keep the business agile.

Our fourteen-year-old combine harvester is a crucial piece of machinery. A wheel recently departed from the rest of the machine on the road and the combine ended up in the ditch. Thankfully no serious damaged was done to people or machine, however, this brings home the fact that we need to look at replacing this over the next couple of years and at around half a million pounds for a new one, I will be looking for another used machine. For this year, one of the things near the top of the list is a solar power system to go on the oil factory roof. This ticks many boxes both financially and environmentally, so as long as I can get the figures to work, it should become a reality over the next few months.

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Farming Diary

From LEAF Demonstration Farmer Duncan Farrington

As September draws to a close, we are in the final stages of the busy workload. Harvest seems a distant memory, the rapeseed is all planted and growing well, although a little rain wouldn’t go a miss; now it is just the wheat that needs planting. So the question is to plant wheat or not to plant wheat?

Like many of the jobs on an arable farm, I don’t have the luxury of a crystal ball to see what the weather is going to do over the next few weeks. September has to date been the driest on record. The lack of rain has not allowed much blackgrass and other weed seeds to germinate and grow, which ideally I would like to have a chance to kill off with a weed killer before we start planting wheat. If we drill too early, these weed seeds will germinate at the same time as the crop and cause problems for the next season. If we wait too long and the weather breaks, we may struggle to get the crops into good soil conditions, or at all. The plan is to encourage the weeds to grow quickly by giving the soil a gentle rake, kill off the weeds before planting some fields whilst the conditions are favourable, then wait as long as I dare before planting the remainder. In other words, I’m hedging my bets in trying to make the right decision.

I read recently that Richard Branson has given up eating beef because of his concerns over greenhouse gas emissions produced by cattle. He is, of course, correct – cows produce methane (from flatulence), however, Mr. Branson’s concerns are more about intensively produced beef in South America where cattle are raised in feed lots consuming huge resources to produce beef for North America. It is a completely different story in Britain and other similar countries, where beef is reared less intensively. Whilst it is true cows do flatualte because they are ruminant animals, meaning they eat grass, something we humans are not able to do. If we all stopped eating beef, what would happen to our green and pleasant land? Perhaps we could plough it all up to grow more crops to feed a vegetarian world, but there again that would cause other environmental issues, including the emission of greenhouse gases.

Sometimes, out of good intensions and trying to make the right decision, people can get a little side tracked without seeing the bigger picture. Besides, did I mention that air travel is a huge cause of greenhouse gas emissions? What would Mr. Branson say about that?

Over the years I have had bird surveys carried out on the farm. Primarily because I find this sort of thing interesting and whilst I am no bird expert (although I have learned a lot in the last few years), I do like to know what we have and what we can do to improve the likely hood of getting more species on the farm. Local conservation expert, Dr. Mark Avery has been surveying the birds at Bottom Farm since 2003. Back then he got very excited when he found Turtle Doves on the farm, which came back each year to nest. Unfortunately, in recent years he thought they had disappeared, which is the case in much of the UK. However, I was delighted recently when I thought I had spotted them here again, the turtle doves return. An excited call to Mark, who came out and confirmed, even more excitedly, that I was right! They’re back. This is great news, especially so as it was waste seeds I scatter around the farm from Farrington Oils, that they were feeding on.

Mark has just launched a new book, ‘A Message from Martha’, which talks about the sad demise of the last carrier pigeon in America, 100 years ago and the social history around the subject. It also draws parallels with the plight of the Turtle Dove today in the UK, mentioning our farm as part of the message. I haven’t read the copy kindly given to me yet, due to harvest keeping me busy at the moment, but am looking forward to soon. Until then it looks great on the coffee table, with the cover designed by local artist, Carry Akroyd.

Harvest is in full swing, with the rapeseed nearly gathered in, giving very pleasing results following a near perfect growing season. Marvin is taking over from Father as the main combine driver this year, for which he has some big boots to fill. After over forty years experience driving combine harvesters, there is not much my Father doesn’t know and to let a new man lose on our beloved machine can’t be easy, however, Father seems reasonably relaxed, showing Marvin the finer points to help make him into an experienced operator in time.

Once we have finished the rapeseed, there will be a few days catching up on other jobs around the farm in readiness for the main wheat harvest to start in August. This is when the real fun starts and it all gets a bit hectic, so preparation is key.

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Farming Diary

From LEAF Demonstration Farmer Duncan Farrington