Hartpury Day Trippers

 

On Tuesday this week we entertained a group of final year students from Hartpury College.  It was a double act between Alex Milne, the Overbury Estate Manager and me.  The group consisted of Equine, Countryside Manager and Agrics, so a great mix of different interests, right up our street.  After a quick introduction it was all aboard our trailer and off to the Overbury Grasshoppers nursery school.  Alex spoke about the village residential and business portfolio and how the farm and estate interact on different projects.  Then we met Kathrine for an introduction to the Overbury Stud and how a stud farm works.  It's such a scientific business, I always end up learning something myself!

We then headed up the hill and stopped overlooking the Vale of Evesham, see above, where we spoke about the arable unit, irrigation, rotations, Integrated Farm Management, Woodland, Management, varieties of wheat and how the machinery fits into the system, it was a long stop that provoked much discussion.  Following on we headed to one of  the many conservation areas where our Higher Level Stewardship Scheme is starting to deliver real benefits to our local bird populations, not to mention how our flora is developing in both the grassland systems and in the arable crops.

By now we were running late so we popped into the sheep unit to talk about how they integrate into our farming systems and our relationship with Sainsbury's, before heading down the hill and away.

I hope we managed to generate some interesting thoughts and ideas for the next generation heading through the college ranks, we certainly enjoyed the trip and await next years group!

Cracking Coverage

We should finish planting the spring barley today after a prolonged drilling period with the foggy weather.  The fog has really stopped the ground drying out and meant that we have had to stay off the fields until they are dry enough to travel on with out doing too much damage to the soil structure.  After the drilling we have been following along with a herbicide (weed killer) to reduce the competition from certain weeds.  This year we have been using some new nozzels which are angled.  One faces forwards and the other backwards.  This helps coat the ground more evenly, especially if there is a clod to two, with the herbicide.  This picture was taken up on the hill in a field called Kemerton Larches and it was a field that we direct drilled with our Horsch Sprinter 6 drill and then rolled.  Most of the field has gone in well but there are a couple of patches where it was a bit damper, mainly under the woodland, that the seedbed isn't ideal. 

the crop should be up in about a week or so which will be great to see, as long as we can keep the crows from doing too much damage.  

Spring Barley Being Planted

We've started drilling our spring barley crop this year about a week earlier than last year up on the top of Bredon Hill.  The weather has been a bit frustrating with the hill covered in cloud for a couple of mornings stopping the fields drying and almost wetting them again.  With only 21mm of rainfall in February I thought the fields might be a little drier.  Some fields have come out of overwintered stubble as part of our Higher Level Stewardship Scheme.  This means that we can't do anything to the fields until after the 15th February.  They are left untouched to see if they will provide winter seed for birds and also a nice stubble for great habitat for hares to live in.  The fields were cultivated once with our Vaderstad Topdown before being drilled.  We are planting Concerto with variable seed rates across the fields depending on soil type.  More seed is being put on the parts of the field that are very stony or heavier, where the seed losses are higher, and less seed is being planted on the better parts of the field where the seed losses are less.

We've had some rain today so we'll have to delay the drilling until after the weekend when hopefully we can carry on and get the crop planted into warm damp soil.  The Concerto is all contracted to the Molson Coors Growers Group and will end up in a pint of Carling or Worthingtons later this year or next.

Lambing Update

The first group of ewes are now over halfway through their lambing with only about 60 to go.  Things have been going really well and the weather is almost perfect for putting young lambs and ewes out into the fields.  Fortunately we have avoided the Schmallenberg disease which is a real worry in the back of our minds all the time.  Every time a ewe lambs, it's fingers crossed to see what appears.  There is absolutely nothing we can do for the lambs or the ewes if they have been bitten by the midges last year and contracted the disease.  There is no vaccine available so we have to just wait and see what happens.  It appears that the time of infection is during the first trimester of pregnancy and is affecting sheep lambing now.  There are currently cases that have been identified in Worcestershire and Gloucestershire so it really is pot luck whether or not we escape.  I guess with climate change, resulting in warmer drier weather ,we can expect to have more disease outbreaks like this in the future but it makes it very hard work to plan for our industry going forward.  The last outbreak with similar threats would have been blue tongue about 4 years ago.  The good news is that it is not transferable sheep to sheep, there are no restrictions on livestock movements and it can't be contracted by humans.

Fingers crossed we have many more healthy lambs born on the hill this year.

Worms Eye View

With the dry spell of weather over the past few weeks, the land has been drying out which has allowed us to get onto the fields and start working on our spring campaign.  We have started ploughing some of the light land inpreparation for planting salad onions in about 4 weeks time.  Ploughing now should allow a nice germination of weeds before the onions are planted, reducing the cost of weed killers (herbicides) and actually being able to control some certain weeds, like groudsel.

Derek was ploughing in this field, Lynch Piece, and was almost immediately joined by about 50 lapwings looking for all the tasty worms and insects that were being turned onto the surface.  A tasty snack, unless you are the worm!

Conservation Grade Student

Yesterday I travelled to Royston in Hertfordshire for an Induction Day into becoming a farmer growing 'Conservation Grade' milling wheat for this years harvest. The training took place at Thrift Farm and is owned by Robert Law Robert has been one of the pioneers of Conservation Grade (CG) cereals, growing Oats for Jordans and as one of the 80 or so CG, growers has dedicated 10% of the arable area of the farm to wildlife.

The day started with an induction about CG from Brin Hughes about how the organisation started and what the aims are.  In a nutshell the idea is to grow food for people and wildlife on the same farm, whilst getting a premium from the customer for the nature friendly production methods (very important!)  In essence the farm needs to provide varying degrees of habitat and food sources for different insects, mammals and birds made up of specific types.  4% must be in Pollen and Nectar Mixes, 2% on Wild Bird Food, 2% in fine tussocky grasses and the final 2% in other habitats, such as hedgerows, ditches, watercourses, woodland and ponds.  These percentages work in nicely for us with our Higher Level Stewardship Agreement.  A farm map is also needed to help the assessor when being audited, once a year.  Within two years there is a habitat assessment to ensure all of the habitats we say we've planted have been done and managed accordingly.

We had a great talk by Peter Thompson from the Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust all about habitat selection for targets species.  First you need to know what species you have then you need to sort out the habitats.  Where to sight them, what to grow in the them, how to establish them and their following management.  All these snippets of information are so valuable when trying to plan these additions around the farm landscape. As Robert said "its easier to manage 500 acres of wheat than 60 acres of bird food".  I think that sums up the philosophy of these guys willing to go the extra mile for conservation and taking pride in the food that they grow, for people and wildlife.

We saw one of Roberts new barn Owl Boxes and heard about the Nature Friendly Owls project.  These birds are at the top of the food chain on our farms and if they are thriving then its a very good sign that those below them are also doing very well indeed.  In all I had a great day and I am looking forward to working with these farmers in the future, which can only be good for our business and also for our wildlife.  I can't help thinking that there are so many similarities and passions that CG farmers have with LEAF Farmers that there isn't some way of linking the two organisations together in some way?  We'll as the nubie of the group I'll leave that one quietly on the back burner for now, but leave you with a quote from Sir David Bellamy.

 "It's not just nature that benefits from Conservation Grade, we all do.  We see more birds and more bees and hear more buzzing and bird song.  On these farms we can start to enjoy the countryside again".  Keep watching and listening to hear how we get on.

Bustling Bramblings

For about the last 6 weeks or so we have had a great flock of LBJ's (Little Brown Jobs) feeding on one of our Higher level Stewardship bird food mixes.  The plot is quite large which is great for these smaller birds offering lots of protection, hidden away in the middle of their very own dinner table.  The size of the block (5acres) is also able to sustain larger numbers of birds for longer periods of time which is another benefit, so they're not using up energy searching out their next meal.  There is also less 'edge effect' of reduced seed yield, usually caused by rabbits nibbling away at the edges.

This mixture consists of Spring barley (60%), Tricticale (15%), Millet (10%), Fodder Raddish (5%) and Mustard (10%), although due to the dry summer when the crop was planted there seems to be a greater percentage of mustard that has survived!

The vast majority of these birds are Bramblings although there are a few Linnets and Chaffinches joining in the flock.  Having walked through the crop to take some video footage here of the flock swooping around there is still some seed left that has not shed yet so I hope that this bird table will continue to deliver the goods for a few weeks to come, while the winter weather is upon us.