Snow Joke

Overbury in the snow

Well mother nature certainly has a great way of bringing us back down to earth with a reminder of who really is in charge! Last week we saw temperatures plummet to -8 degrees with added windchill taking the temperature down into double digits below zero.  Then came Storm Emma sucking Siberian air across Europe and freeze blasting the UK.

In a funny kind of way we were very lucky to only have a few inches of snow, but when the wind blew the trouble started.  Our small roads, bordered with beautiful hedgerows acted as sinks for the snow to settle in. Many of our roads, including the one to the main farm had 5' of snow drifts making them impossible to get through even with a 4 wheel drive truck.

Clearing snow on the Eckington Road

Like many farmers we have some good equipment that could be deployed to help clear the snow. Working on behalf of Worcestershire County Council to clear the larger trunk roads before moving into the smaller lanes to ease up more local traffic.  In total we had 3 team members (Tim, Derek and Gordon) out for 2.5 days clearing snow around Bredon Hill. I think we have been very lucky, lambing is not due to start for another month and my heart goes out to those spending hours rescuing stranded livestock.

If there are a few messages that these events can draw out, they would be that community spirit is not dead, much help was available to clear driveways, collect shopping and shovel snow from valley gutters.

Farmers have an active role to play, not just to produce food and look after the natural resources but also to keep the roads open to allow others to go about their daily lives.  Next time you get stuck behind a slow moving tractor and trailer of hay, or a combine harvester moving around the lanes, just pause for a moment and think they are doing their jobs just as you were able to get through the snow to do yours.

Drifting snow

3 days later we are all back to normal, with only a few farm tracks impassable to vehicles smaller than a tractor and the sun is shining.  Spring feels like it is just around the corner.  We will have to wait and see!

Spring Drilling Roundup

We started planting the spring crops on the 19th March into fairly good conditions considering the amount of winter rainfall we have had this year.  It's one advantage of having Cotswold Brash soil; which is very thin and has a deep layer of Limestone underneath which is relatively free draining.  The downside is that without summer rainfall yield can be limited.  We started off drilling at the top of the hill into a sprayed of cover crop of Forage Rye.  This crop was planted in September 2013 and its purpose was to cover the soil creating a layer of organic matter to intercept the rain through the winter, reducing soil erosion and run off.  What a year to start cover cropping!  The forage rye was sprayed off with Glyphosate mixed with liquid Nitrogen fertiliser 5 days before drilling and the cross slot drill then went and planted the seeds directly into the the crop residue.  

This variety of spring barley is called Tipple and is being grown as part of our Molson Coors Growers Group tonnage to go to the Shobnal Malting later this summer to be brewed into Carling Lager. This method moves very little soil resulting in far less mineralisation of nitrogen through reduced carbon disturbance.  It is better for our carbon emissions into the atmosphere, the soil, the water and the environment.

After drilling this field the Cross Slot drill moved down the slope to plant Propino Spring Barley which we are growing for seed for Frontier Agriculture which should hopefully be used by the Molson Coors Growers Group farmers next spring.  The drill coped very well with the amount of surface residue that was not grazed by the ewes during the winter.  There has been plenty of slug activity in the heavy land areas of the field after drilling and before emergence so we have had to apply a dose of Sluxx slug pellets to control, them. 

After about 10 days the crops had germinated well and they emerged within 2 weeks.  The picture below shows the emerging crop pushing up through the previous crop residue.  The stalks are what remains of the mustard cover crop after the sheep had eaten the leaves off.

Day 19 - Limagrain and Farm Visit

It was an early start for Robert and me today for the 2.5 hour drive West to Waitsburg, in the neighbouring state of Washington.  We headed there to meet wheat breeder Jean-Bruno Beaufume' who works for Limagrain.  We had a great meeting with Jean-Bruno hearing about the breeding plans and targets for the Limagrain company.  Limagrain is a farmer owned and farmer run cooperative and as such is dedicated to producing affordable quality seed.  Limagrain is very active in the region working very closely with the University of Idaho breeding program.  This is a fairly new venture and has benefited both establishments.  It was seen as a necessary move by the local farmers with reduced funding for the UOI.  Limagrain also benefited by getting access to elite local germ plasm which it can use to breed with at its extensive network of trial sites. (This is just a random wheat field!)

We talked about the future of wheat breeding and what is holding our yields back and what are the challenges for the future.  There are three main challenges that we talked about; climate, politics and economics, and grower targeting.  We talked about the necessity for growers to pay for seed royalties, so that investment can be made back into wheat breeding.  It currently takes between 10 and 12 years to bring a variety from being identified to seeing it in the field.  That is a long term commitment to our industry and one that must be supported.  We talked about long droughts and short droughts, about genetically modified breeding, mutogenisis, hybridisation and traditional breeding.  We talked about where yield is generated and how plants can compensate given good conditions, as I say I had a fascinating time.

After leaving Jean-Bruno we headed back East and stopped at Dayton, home of the original Jolly Green Giant.  The business here was an asparagus canning plant that later went on to can peas.  It has closed now but the green man, (306 feet high) can still be made out etched into the hillside over looking the town, he even still has his green boots on.

We had a chat with Glenn Warren and Lee about some of the machinery they are running on the 5,000 acre farm.  I was particularly impressed with the fuel bowser knowing that we had a 2,000L one at home this one comes in at 4,000 gallons, or 15,000 Litres.  The lorry was made in 1991 and has just over 1 million miles on the clock.  The pump very quickly spews out the fuel at a mighty 60 gals or 227 Litres/minute.  So in about 4 minutes we would have filled the combine.  The combine was parked in a great workshop.  It was light, airy, well insulated, lots of doors, about 72' x80' in size and with under floor (gycerol and water) heating. 

The Challenger tracked machine also caught my eye with the ingenuity of the saddle tanks on the front.  The track width was huge and would have been at least 4m wide.  The tanks carry liquid fertiliser when drilling with starter fertiliser and act as very helpful ballast whilst going across the slopes.  Glen told me of one slope that rises up 900 feet in 40 acres!  The tractor is packing a 525hp engine and a hydraulic draw bar to help steer the following implement around corners when turning on the hills.  This tractor is also used during harvest as the grain cart pulling a chaser bin between the combines and the semi trucks hauling the grain away to be stored.

Nuffield Contemporary Scholars Conference - The End of The Beginning

Sunday morning arrived all too quickly after a late night in the bar; continuing  the discussions after Steve Larocque's excellent presentation; dancing, talking and letting our hair down (those of us that have any).  We even got restricted in the bar to one drink per person per hour, but that didn't dampen anybodies spirits.  Over the week I have made some incredible friendships and had some very interesting conversations and discussions about farming, global threats, encouraging new entrants into agriculture, trying to strengthen the appeal of agriculture to our customers and how we can feed people more sustainably.  I have also learnt that other farmers around the whole world are having the same discussion that we are, we are not alone and that by talking about problems, solutions can be found.  Soberingly I also appreciate the small part we, the UK, have to play in the global production of food.  However our part is becoming clearer to me, we need to be more productive, more efficient, more environmentally aware and better linked to our customer, whether that is the supermarket selling our lamb or the flour miller grinding the wheat that we grow.  Just the right time for my study topic, 20T/ha in 20 Years time, Fact or Fiction?

I also have 78 new best friends.  You might think that is impossible after only a week, but I know that if I wanted to go and visit any of the #Nuffield13 scholars doors would be wide open in all four corners of the globe and that is something very special.  Of course that is mirrored here at Overbury.  The washing machine will be maintained regularly to make sure it's ready to be pressed into service.

It really was a great week and one that will stay with me forever.  I know that we all felt the same way, and it was hard to say good bye to everyone; assuming that, as a group, we will probably never be together again.  There will be reunions from time to time but I sadly doubt all of us will be together again.

For some it was on with the Global Focus Group Tour, something I plan to do in the future.  Blake Vince (above) from Ontario is part of that group who headed to Washington DC very early on Sunday morning to continue the 7 week world tour.  Next week (8th April) they are in the UK so we'll meet up again, which will be fantastic to hear their stories from California and Brazil, having seen some facebook pictures and comments.

For others it was heading back to Toronto airport and back to the UK, but for me; I headed North West with Karen Daynard (CDN), Julian Raine (NZ) and Karen Brosnan (IRE) back to Guelph.

We stopped along the way at Sue-Anne Staff's winery, you could say for 'one for the road' and then after dropping Julian and Karen along the way, Karen (CDN- next to me) headed to her parents house. Terry and Dot Daynard had very kindly offered to put me up for the night.

I have to say it was a great feeling to be in a proper home and not living out of a suitcase for a change.  Terry and Dot cooked a lovely meal (on the BBQ in the snow, proper Canadian's) and we were joined by Karen and her sister Kelly, who spoke earlier in the week on social media.  After a great nights sleep and Dot doing some washing for me (thank you so much), we had a look around the farm buildings and the outside corn store

which was used to store corn (maize) on the cob over winter.  The cold dry air would keep the crop safe gradually drying it out over the winter before it was sold.  Terry and Dot showed me some pictures of the store being filled.  In a dry year the cobs would flow easily up the elevator but if they were wet almost every one had to be prodded up into store. We also has a sneaky peak around the machinery shed and saw this little beauty..

tucked away.  I guess it was a sign, once entangled in the Nuffield world there is no escaping!

Grasshoppers Attack Christmas Tree

On Tuesday this week we had a visit from Overbury Grasshoppers our local village nursery.  We took them up on a tractor and trailer to our small patch of Christmas trees for them to select one for their nursery.  They wanted a little 4 ft one that was nice and bushy!  Derek wielded the saw and in a flash it was down.  After the tree was loaded up into the trailer, along with the children, we headed off for a ride further up the hill to look at the Elm tree we planted a year ago.

This was the view form the back of the trailer on a rather squally showery day.  The Elm tree was 3m tall and the trunk was 11cm wide at about 1m high.  It still had lots of growing to do.  The children learnt a little about every green trees and deciduous trees.  Then it back to the nursery to warm up and dry out a little.  They all had a great morning, although I think  the highlight was the tractor and trailer ride.

Tractor Factory

Waterloo on Tuesday saw us arrive meeting up at the Tractor Factory where the 7000, 8000 and 9000 series tractors are built. Each of us has one of these tractors so it was good to see them being built and how mach effort goes in behind the turning of the key.

All the tractors are built to order and come along the production line as chassis, before the transmission and engines, (made at the previous visited factories) are all bolted on. The final tractors roll off after rigourous testing before being transported all over the world. Deere also make engines for marine, construction, irrigators, generators and gas powered engines for school buses and garbage trucks. We have located most of our baggage, one piece is still missing although all the rest is still at Chicago airport. The smart money is on Ben Tallis returning without his bags!