Archived News

21st August 2013

Laurence has survived the herbage seed harvesting, but he may have gained a few grey hairs!

The next destination for the herbage seed is a seed cleaning plant where it will be stored and then cleaned in November. However there isn’t enough space for them to receive our seed at present so we had to sell some barley this morning at a lower rate than if we’d held onto it; with that barley going, it gives enough storage for the herbage seed on the farm until the seed plant can collect it.

Laurence cut 10 acres of oats at Crossways farm last night and then moved the combine at 5.30am in readiness to cut 15 acres at Marshman’s this afternoon. He has now moved to Churchfield to harvest the final 40 acres of oats, hopefully before the showers due overnight.

Cultivating has started at Wotton and was progressing well until Ed's tractor tyre had a puncture this morning; he’s now back, and completing the fields towards Crossways.

The Horsch Tiger Cultivator undertakes four tasks in a tillage train: deep cultivation, shallow (disc) cultivation, rolling and sowing. Charlie has followed on behind Ed to give the field a final rolling.

By using advanced technology such as a tillage train, the number of passes over the field is reduced; where four passes with four individual implements was once required, a larger tractor can now pull a combination of implements to do the job in one go. This speeds up the whole operation which can then take advantage of the good weather.

Last year the crops were being sown in wet and cold weather and that has had an impact on yields this harvest, so it would be great to get the autumn drilling completed before any bad weather returns.

Tractor drivers have plenty of time to think whilst carrying out their skilled field work. This was clearly demonstrated to me when Ed calculated that the area of ground he can cover with the Horsch Tiger in five minutes, would have taken a horse and plough four days to work!

As part of our arable rotations oilseed rape is being sown in these fields, after the wheat which was harvested this month.

Some seed or grain is grown on contract for buyers such as Lillico Attlee, who this year asked Laurence to grow herbage seed for a seed company in Yorkshire.

The remainder will be sold into the market so we keep a close eye on prices and gauge when it’s best to sell over the coming year.

There are a host of buyers on the market who utilise the commodity for an array of end products  including bread and beer, insulation, plastics and packaging, fuel and ingredients for cosmetics or medicine to name but a few.