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Archived News
16th August 2013
Donald and Ed cleared the barley straw from fields at Shalford and Raikes and Amanda worked with Donald yesterday afternoon to get the last of the wheat bales in at Wotton.
They cleared the fields swiftly and stacked the straw undercover whilst it was dry.
After the success of last year’s novice ploughing training day here at Manor Farm, we are hosting the event again this Sunday 18th August. This event is being held jointly by The Surrey County Agricultural Society (SCAS) and Guildford and District Ploughing Association and is coordinated by Mick Hill.
Ken Chappell from The Society of Ploughmen and National Champion, Ashley Boyles will be here to provide their expert advice to the novice ploughmen and women as well as offering to refresh and train judges and stewards to National standard which enables the smooth running of a ploughing match.
Christopher ploughing this evening
Novices are being encouraged to come along and learn from ploughmen who have been attending ploughing matches for many years, so much so that Mick has arranged for Christopher to borrow a tractor and plough for Sunday’s event and hopefully a few more of this autumn’s matches.
With support and encouragement from ‘the old school’; skills and experience can be passed on to the novices.
It may surprise some folk to learn that machinery tyres can be an excellent Educational tool during school visits to the farm and this new tyre fitted yesterday is a thing of beaurty!
Ten years ago Laurence would have had the time to walk all the crops himself but with increased acreage he counts upon the expertise of Agronomists such as Andy Gaye to walk the crops on a weekly basis and advise on crop health and nutrition.
It was the weather that Andy Gaye and I were discussing yesterday in Homefield, after he’d been up on the combine giving his crop report to Laurence and as they continued steady progress across the field.
As ever the weather can make or break the harvest, such as dry weather in June or July when the crops still needed rain or a wet harvest when all the grain needs to be dried before storage.
When Andy checked the herbage seed last Friday, not all of it was ready to harvest, however previous rain had caused a secondary flush of growth below the crop which has made cutting particularly challenging.
Laurence must constantly watch and adjust the cutter bar to ensure the seed heads are taken up into the tank,
and the stems being left behind in the field to bale as hay, whilst cutting high enough to miss the new growth. Stress levels in the cab reached a new high!
Last year the wet weather prevented harvesting most of the herbage seed so we were really pleased to have completed 20 acres in Homefield before sunset yesterday and before today’s rain.
Herbage seed
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