Grain To Glass

On June 26th 8 intrepid novice cyclists are setting off from the Shobnal Maltings (Burton-upon-Trent) in order to raise money for the Molson Coors Growers Group charity, The Prince's Countryside Fund.  Our aim is to raise awareness of the supply chain from farm to maltings to brewery to customer.  Our barley, (as those followers of this blog know) goes to Molon Coors as part of the growers group.  This group, of over 90 farmers, aim to supply 30,000 tonnes of British barley into famous brands such as Carling, where they use 100% British barley for the brewing process.

The group is made up of 4 farmers, (Mark Blakeway, James Cox, Andy Roberts and me), two staff from Molson Coors (Jerry Dyson and Debbie Read), Jon Duffy from Frontier and David Hall from the EFFP 

We are funding the whole operation ourselves so every penny that you are able to give will be donated to the charity.  I have been training fairly hard, managing about 45 miles on my longest ride, about half of the actual daily ride on the longest two days.  The route will take us over 180 miles from start to finish and we will be stopping off along the way collecting, hops and barley to present to the master brewer at Molson's brewery in Alton (Hamphire) sometime on the 28th June.

If you feel you can sponsor us then please use the Virgin Money Giving  link to get to our sponsorship page.

many thanks in advance and we'll keep you posted on twitter using the hashtag #GraintoGlass

Hopefully there will be a cold Carling waiting for us in Alton when we complete the ride!

Molson Coors Growers Group Spring Meeting

On Tuesday we were excellently hosted for our first Molson Coors Growers Group spring agronomy meeting by Richard Tongue at Priory Farm Hazelton up in the Cotswolds.  We met up in the yard and had a brief summary of the evening by James Cox and then it was off to the field to look at some spring barley at about the 3-4 leaf stage. Richard was one of the runners up in last years MCGG internal barley competition so we were interested to learn about any new techniques he was employing.  It is the real beauty of being involved in a group like this, ideas are forthcoming and we can have a really good discussion about the crops and how we grow them.

We talked about cultivations as some of the fields are in overwinter stubble options (like us) and seed rates, seed dressings and fertiliser timings and rates.  Richard has just bought a new drill and was placing nitrogen down the spout with the seed which was interesting and logical.  John Vickery (Agrii Agronomist) was there to talk about herbicides and fungicide strategies for the coming few months, depending on the weather over the coming months.  There was some discussion about BYDV (Barley Yellow Dwarf Virus) and the areas affected after last years warm autumn and how these patches are very similar to Rhizoctonia solani (a soil born fungus).

After we had exhausted the conversations in the field, and it was getting colder, we headed off to the local pub for a pie and a pint which went down very well.  How many beer drinkers know how much effort and dedication goes into this stage of the brewing process?  The nitrogen levels we apply will have a massive effect of the quality of the grain and its suitablility for malting, let alone the effect that the weather has, which is obviously out of our control, perfectly demonstrated this spring!

A little Help From Big Sista!

Our run of good weather has finally come to an end and so allows me to tell you a little about some exciting new machinery.  We have actually cut something every day since the 20th July which in itself is quite a record for the past few summers.  Where have the weeks of sunshine I seem to remember from my youth gone too or am I looking back through rose tinted glasses?  Those 'combine connoisseur's' among you will notice that this is not our usual combine harvester cutting winter barley on Bredon Hill.  John Deere are in the process of launching a new range of combines, built in Europe for the high output combines on larger farms and they wanted an area of crop to check the machine out and to make sure there were no teething problems.  We happened to be cutting our malting barley for Carling, which was going very slowly with our combine so we jumped at the chance to try the new machine and give her a work out!

The output was amazing and showed how technology moves on very quickly.  Our machine is only 4 years old and was easily out performed in a difficult crop to combine.  The forward speed was 5-6kph instead of ours at 3kph.  The header on the new combine was also bigger at a whopping 35 feet with belts presenting the crop to the combine very uniformally.  There were very few losses and much less than our combine in the straw swath.  These losses are grains that can't be shaken from the straw and so are lost back to field.  These are called volunteers in the following crop that need to be sprayed/cultivated out later on.  The grain tank held a full trailer load about 25%  larger than ours.  Fuel efficiency is roughly about the same as ours for the acreage cut.

This model also came with track's in place of the larger front wheels which will help reduce the transport width (3.5m) of the machine and also reduce the compaction of the heavy machine on the soft soil.  Grip would also be helped climbing up and down our hill.  But what is the cost and will that cost be justified?  More harvest updates can be seen at No1FarmerJake where I am uploading a daily video tracking our harvest, as it happens!

A Successful Day, Dispite The Weather

Our first visitor for this years Open Farm Sunday event arrived in the drizzle just before 9am.  The tractors were polished, the trailers swept and the fields nicely mown.  After a slightly delayed start we headed off to The Overbury Stud where Simon Sweeting gave us a talk about the workings of a stud farm.  It was fascinating hearing about scanning mares to check for a pregnancy at 16 days.  We also saw a Brown Hare running across one of the fields, a great start to the trip.

Following on from Simon we had a talk from Dominc Swainson about the sprayer that we use to apply the pesticides and fertiliser to the fields.  We spoke about Integrated Farm Management and gave some exampled of how we use the philosophy at Overbury Farms to help with our decision making processes.  We learnt about the annual requirement to have an MOT type certificate through NSTS for each sprayer and the fact that the sprayer operators all had to be trained through NRoSO We also spoke about the amount of planning we need to complete before fertiliser is applied to each individual field and the records that are kept of each application.  This also contributed toward the farms accreditation to LEAF Marque of which we are very proud.

Our next station was to hear all about Bumble Bees and how they can help us with pollination of our crops.  Stuart Veall works for Syngenta and he came out with a small hive of bees which everyone found amazing.  It is hoped that another year we can have a couple of hives to help with our crop and margin pollination.  We parked next to a beetle bank with pollen and nectar strips adjacent to each other and explained further about the farms conservation plans and how we are increasing food and habitat for farmland birds, including Corn Buntings and Tree Sparrows.

William Fox (Frontier Agriculture) was on hand to complete the story about what happens to our crops when they leave the farm.  He told us about biofuels created from wheat and rape, Carling Beer made from our malting barley and even how beans are used in fish food as a protein source.  Apparently when crushed the beans are sticky and can hold minerals and other constituents of a ration together in the water for feeding to fish.  (Even Farmer Jake learnt something as well!).  After the last stop we came back down from the hill and thawed out a little before unloading a repeating the process again. 

We had such a lot of help on the day from Derek, Gordon, Graham and Tim for driving the tractors and getting the farm machinery in place; Tod, James and Harry, who looked after the livestock (sheep, chickens and a duck) and from Suzie and Kieren for setting up the gazebo and organising the lists and putting the packs together on the day.  Obviously a huge thanks to our speakers on the day and to those that braved the weather to show up and listen to what I believe makes British food the safest in the world, being produced sympathetically to our environment, by the best farmers in the world.

Farmers Toast Carling Western Growers Group

Yesterday I travelled up with James Cox, (2010 Malting Barley grower of the Year) to Burton-on-Trent to the annual meeting of the Carling Western Growers Group (CWGG).   The group of over 70 farmers supplies about 20,000t of malting barley every year to Molson Coors The barley is used to provide malt for Carling Beer and we feature heavily as a group in their 100% British Barley campaign of which we are very proud to be associated. 

One of the benefits to being part of this club is the knowledge that our produce, which we spend hours planning for, growing, harvesting and storing are going to a  known home and one as popular as Carling.  There are other benefits as well; being able to share knowledge about growing the crop more efficiently and therefore reducing the carbon footprint (also through the whole supply chain), preferential harvest treatment and having a direct link with the maltster and discussing, one to one, the intricate points of malting barley.  The session concluded with a forward look at the corporate responsibilities and the contract for the next 3 (or so) years of barley supply.  Everyone left with a positive feel about the group and what it can provide our customer with going forward, and it wasn't caused by the complimentary C2 Beer

Coors 'Best Practice' for storage

The malting trade is a very difficult business as we are dealing with a living growing seed. The seeds or grains must therefore be kept in perfect conditions to avoid loosing germination or getting pest infestations. Keeping those two key thoughts in the forefront of our minds was the key message from James, who's farm we visited last night. Drying the grain and then slowing cooling the crop was the best way to avoid any costly rejections at the malthouses in Burton on Trent.

Trying to get the crop dried to a target of 14% moisture and then cooled down to about 10 degrees should see the crop safely into long term storage, from harvest 2010 until the summer of 2011.

Next week a group of growers are heading to Denmark to see what we can learn from the Danish growers and maltsters about getting the right product to the right customer at the right price. I'll keep you posted as to how we get on!

Harvest Update

We've had a fairly good spell of weather for the past 10 days and been able to make good progress, we even managed to harvest some of the spring barley without having dry it. The Solstice wheat is all but in the barn, 14ha's left, at 500ft, that is not fit yet. We should finish the malting barley on the hill by mid afternoon today and then it's on to the Zebedee and Cordiale on the hill for the weekend, weather (as always) permitting. Straw baling has been moving on apace with 3 balers in the fields yesterday (thanks Brian). These will be planted with Catana Oilseed Rape behind the carrier and biodrill very soon. The wind is proving a mixed blessing at the moment: keeping the showers away or whizzing them through very quickly, but it is also hindering the bean desiccation and slug pellet application on the rape already planted, as always in this job there is a comprise to be made at some point or another. Carling have got their featured growers on their web site now, have a look, you might recognise someone on http://www.carling.com

Coors Barley Harvest

On Tuesday 28th July we started harvesting our winter barley crop, destined for the malt houses in Burton on Trent, grown under contract to Coors, which should end up being turned into Carling http://www.carling.com. The harvest was the first harvest in memory to actually have started on Bredon Hill as opposed to starting in the Vale of Evesham. The crop came off between and through some light showers but the strong wind enabled us to carry on until 1.30 am to finish the field before the predicted rain arrived yesterday. We harvest about 25 ha with moisture's ranging from between 18-21%. It will mean having to be dried, slowly through our drying plant twice. Drying will be slow and gentle, with not too much heat, to avoid damaging the germination, as this would make it useless for malting. Hopefully it should be OK and the premium should cover the extra drying costs. Samples have been sent off so see what the quality is like, we will soon know if the man from Frontier say YES!!

Spring Planting Apace

With the recent dry weather, yes it's been dry for at least 2 weeks, last time that happened was in 2003, or so it seems, the land has been dry enough to travel on. Gordon here > is drilling Tipple Spring Malting Barley on Bredon Hill. This is under contact to Coors, via Frontier Agriculture, to go to Burton-on-Trent to be made into Carling lager next year. The dry weather following the frost has given us lots of frost tilth and the seed bed is nice and fine. We put some nitrogen fertiliser into the seed bed before we cultivated it so that it was worked into the soil to surround the seedlings as they germinate to hopefully get them off to a really good start. Gordon is hoping to finish the field tonight before it rains, tomorrow.

On the 11th April we are having our annual Farm Lambing Day. Tractors and trailers will be leaving Overbury village hall, from 10am until 3pm, to take you up to Park Farm to see the lambing for yourselves. The game keeping dept, of Paul, Greg and Rod will also be there to uncover a few of the myths behind the dark and shady underground world of game keeping, accompanied by the stuffed or frozen usual suspects, friends or foe! Lunch will be available to purchase at the village hall from 12 am until 2pm, tea and coffee will be available all day. There is a small charge of only £5 for adults and children will travel free. It is a really super day out for all of the family, so bring them along, no matter what the weather is doing, and we'll be pleased to show you all about the lambing and sheep production here at Overbury. It got very busy last year between 11 and 1, so if you can try and get there early.