Apples and Hops

On the 18th September I was treated, along with other members of the Worcestershire NFU, to look around a very special part of Worcestershire.  The 200 acre farm is owned and run by the Capper family; Mark, Richard and Ali, and they are very specialised in growing apples and hops.  These are two crops that I know very little about, so it was a real eye opener being shown around the farm, slightly in the gloom, but never the less, it was an enlightening evening farm walk.

We started in a Gala, eating apple orchard, shown above.  This orchard was planted in 2003 and is on a fairly traditional scale with 12' between the rows and the trees planted 5' apart; being supported on posts and wires.  The apple trade seems as difficult as many other fruit and veg sectors, with prices slow to respond to the ever increasing costs.  In real terms the apples are worth the same price as they were 20 years ago! The apples are sprayed every 7 days with fungicides in order to keep scab off the skins. (purely cosmetic).  The marketing sizes are precise, picked on size and colour.  These apples must have 50% red colour, be just over 55mm in diameter and have the stalks still attached!   Richard and Ali are aiming for 95% in this class 1 to achieve the highest possible price.  That is a tall order and so weather dependant, this year they will be about 10 days behind their harvest schedule due to the cooler summer weather.

Following on from the Gala orchard we looked at one of the hop fields.  there are only 50 hop growers left in the UK, mainly in Worcestershire, Herefordshire and Kent. The plants are grown over the framework of wires and posts.  These annual plants have a life cycle of about 25 years.  The hop plants are manually strung in April and then need constant training up the wires until they get established.  High winds can blow them off the wires and so the process needs to be repeated! The hops are usually ready to harvest in August and different varieties are grown for different aroma's and alpha acids.  The aroma is what gives flavour to the beer and British varieties (there are over 20), are becoming more and more popular with small micro-brewery's, specialising in niche markets rather then mass produced beers. The strung system of growing hops is very labour intensive with up to 14 people being involved in the harvest.  Each of the bines are cut down and laid on on a trailer before being taken back to the farm where the hops are removed form the vine and dried in a kiln, before being packaged up in sacks, once called pockets.

The crop will yield about 8tonnes of fresh material which after drying down to about 10-12% moisture will give a saleable yield of about 1 tonne per acre of hops.  Richard and Ali are also experimenting with growing hedgerow hops, which grow up posts and netting but only to a height of 8'.  These smaller varieties still have the marvellous aroma characteristics but can be harvested by machine, required less fungicides therefore vastly reducing the costs of growing the crop.  The finished crop is stored, before it is sold in the bale.  the longer it's stored the less aromatic it is, so it is important to sell the crop fairly soon after harvest.  Other merchants can then freeze dry or vac pack the hops to retain the aroma for longer.

We Are Now a LEAF Demonstration Farm!

We are delighted to announce that we have been selected to become the latest LEAF (Linking Environment and Farming) Demonstration Farm.  We are joining a very select group of 40 farms around the country and we're very proud to be involved with LEAF at this level, showing our commitment to sustainable farming practicies.  Our official launch date is the 11th October but with invitations arriving as I write, I thought a wider announcement to Farmer Jake followers would be appropriate.

What does being a LEAF Demonstartion Farm (LDF) involve? Well it gives us a perfect opportunity to communicate with our farm visitors and local groups in a structured way how we manage and look after our farmland. 

We can demonstrate the long term vision we have for producing sustainable crops and livestock.  We will welcome more people onto our farm to talk about how we farm in conjunction with the 9 principles of Integrated Farm Management and what we are doing to increase the biodiversity on our farm.  Let's not forget though, that we are also here, providing all of this diverse enviornment, in addition to producing food for you and your neighbours to eat.  With food shortages around the world, the pressure for increased production from our limited land base supply will be great.  We have to manage that pressure while still increasing the benefits to the environment in which we live and work. It's by using the IFM principles we can achieve both of these objectives.

Sunsetting on Harvest

Well harvest was finally wrapped up on Sunday 9th September this year in a very dusty crop of wheat.  The final crops we harvested were very poor yielding with low grain weights that disappointed us all.  There were plenty of ears there but very little grain within and what grain was there didn't fill very well.  I think it was a mixture of lots of different causes this year from the lack of sunlight through the final growing part of the year (June-July); also the very high levels of disease that have plagued the crops though a high rainfall year.  Looking back we were finding septoria in the crop coming through the winter, (which was fairly mid), so there was plenty of innoculum within the crop and then even with a robust fungicide strategy control was poor, with the prolonged wet period.

I guess there were a few high lights to harvest and what it has demonstrated to me is the need to spread the risks around by having different soil types and a proper rotation which allows spring and winter cropping.  The spring barley crops have done well and so far all has been accepted by Molson Coors and the germination has remained good, even with a late harvest.  The oilseed rape has yielded very well considering the year which is encouraging.  I also think that we shouldn't take this year in isolation from a cultivations, cropping or crop protection angle.  I know climate change will through a few curve balls for us to deal with in the future but wouldn't a nice easy harvest make a pleasant change?

Harvest Progress

Well we're nearly half way through the harvest this year and its been a very catchy time.  We manage to harvest for a day here and half a day there constantly being stopped by heavy showers which is very frustrating!  On the positive side all of the Oilseed rape and Winter Barley has been harvested in good condition.  All of the barley has been shipped, either to the maltings at Burton on Trent or into a seed plant for dressing before being sold out to the farmers to plant later this year.  Winter barley yields have been acceptable considering the year, it was very dry through the start of the season then constantly wet from May onwards, when sunshine was needed.  As a result the grains were quite small and light, which lost some yield but the germination was fine and the crop came in dry.  The oilseed rape crop was variable but I think we'll end up just above our average yield although I don't know what the oil levels are like within the seed which has an impact on the value of the crop.  The pods did seem fairly small this year which was disappointing but again not unsurprising considering the lack of summer this year!

So it is now on wards with the wheat harvest.  Early indications are a low grain weight but not a disaster and high proteins as a result.  It's too early to say any thing about the grain yield but fingers crossed we can all have a 10 day spell of good weather to gather the crop in the best conditions with low harvesting and drying costs.

Yellow Hammer Heaven

Earlier in June John Clarke was out looking at the stewardship margins that have been left to self seed this year with arable wild flowers.  In addition to a host of very interesting species including meadow buttercup, field and long headed poppy, white campion, venus looking glass, scented mayweed, pineapple weed, field gromwell and cornflowers he also stumbled (almost) on a Yellow Hammer Nest.  It is quite rare for these little birds to nest on the ground, especially adjacent to a bridleway that is heavily trafficked with walkers and their roaming dogs!  It was a real treat to have established an area for wildlife and for them to actually use it!  I guess they felt secure in the thick wild flower cover and there must have been an abundance of food.  Even this summer there were lots of insects feeding on the wild flowers, themselves being a taste snack for the farmland birds in the area.

This is where the nest was and as you can see it was a really lucky find.  The nest wasn't disturbed and hopefully the eggs would have hatched.  Judging by the large numbers of Yellow Hammers there this morning, the population in this small part of England is turning more yellow, if not Gold!

Harvest Rolls Around Again!

Yesterday we started combining!  It was 9 days later than last year but a much more traditional start date for us on the winter barley.  It is usually a toss up between barley or rape but this year the barley gets the nod and gets combined first.  We started with the hybrid barley for seed, a variety called Bamboo, grown under contract to Syngenta.  The crop is laid out in the field with a male strip around the boundary to act as a pollen buffer and with 6% inclusion of male in the centre (female) part of the field to actually pollinate the crop.  It is very critical for us to have good weather, dry and windy, during pollination, which occurred at the start of June this year when the weather wasn't too bad, so the seed set and therefore yield will hopefully be OK.  We still have to calibrate the combine yield monitor which can then give us an accurate harvested yield.

Following on from the Bamboo we started on the Cassata malting barley, grown under contract with Molson Coors (then into Carling and Worthington).  The very warm weather has really ripped the crop quickly and the grain has a moisture content of about 12.5%, much less than the 16% moisture, we can move it at.  This is good news for us as we don't have the dry the crop, burning expensive gas oil.  On the down side it makes the crop vulnerable to cracking and splitting when being harvested, so every care is taken not to thrash the straw too hard, damaging the germination of the grain.  If it won't germinate then it can't be used for malting so it has to go as animal feed.  Samples were taken this afternoon and set of for analysis, we should know the results in the morning, so fingers crossed.  If you want to keep up to date with this years harvest do follow on you tube No1FarmerJake

Jealotts Hill Visit

I had a really great day at Syngenta 's research centre yesterday at Jealotts Hill.  The farm is a LEAF Demonstration Farm as well so we had a lot in common.  It was the science though that I found really interesting and the years of testing and assessing all of the products that come to market, from herbicides to fungicides.  In fact it can take about 10 years for an active ingredient to be found, tested, made into product, assess, registered, marketed and then finally used in a sprayer.  The process starts in the the picture above after between 700-1000 compounds are tested every week and the results are completely unknown.  If they show some control of sensitive weeds in this case then they will be put into a herbicide program to see if they can be developed.  Obviously the current issue for UK farmers is the control of difficult or resistant blackgrass to which there is no magic bullet waiting round the corner I'm afraid.  Onwards with the rotational and cultural control for the time being!

The next area of testing and development is biokinetics where the team discover what happens after the product has attached itself to the leaf.  Things like how it redistributes itself, how much sticks on, is it water soluble, how persistent is it, what's its photostability (how stable is it in sunlight) and so on, As products are identified and formulated they are tested in this great rain tower, where between 10mm and 40mm of rain/hr can be applied to see how the product and active ingredient remain on the plant.  Here, for demonstration purposes, there was soya, turf, wheat, banana's, and cucumber, all with different leaf characteristics, which all interacted with the active ingredients depending on the size, shape and angle.

We also had a look at the actual application testing methods.  How does it behave in a sprayer? Does it stick to the sides, sink to the bottom, will it come out of the nozzle?  Here the water is being sprayed through a Defy nozzle (left) and a low drift nozzle (right) to demonstrate the process and the droplets are very different in size and characteristics, with a much coarser droplet from the low drift nozzle.

It really was a great opportunity to see the development and effort that goes into our agricultural pesticides and also good to know how rigorous the testing is before the products are even sent to be registered.  As a user of many different products its good to know the level of dedication and science behind the products.