Head In The Clouds

Derek was out early this morning working ground after summer turnips up on Bredon Hill.  The field is called 'Cobblers' and was planted with stubble turnips in April earlier this year.  After the lambs had eaten all of the turnips we sprayed off the remaining weeds with glyphosate and left them to die off.  That was about 3 weeks ago and so in preparation for drilling the land is worked with the Vaderstadt Topdown. The tilth was really good and after 24hrs drying will be ready for planting on Sunday morning!  The land should be in really great condition with the poultry manure applied for the turnips (lots and lovely natural fertilisers) and the sheep acting as mobile fertiliser spreaders the wheat should get off to really great start.

Cultivation

After the combine, following a couple of days later, is the Vaderstadt Topdown, one pass cultivation system. This is a really great piece of farm equipment, versatile in all kinds of situations. From going straight into the stubble, see left, or working down ploughing the machine is very good at creating a seedbed, whilst doing a moderate job at some slightly deeper cultivation. Not as deep as a subsoiler but good shallow pan busting. The tractor, driven by Derek, is a John Deere 8530 pulling a 4meter machine, which on some of our steep fields is wide enough!

Hill Top-Topdown-Top Job

Between the showers, (incidentally it's been the second wettest July for 58 years at Overbury) we have managed to get our new cultivator and tractor into action. Derek is using the machine after winter barley, straw baled and removed, getting a growth of weeds and volunteers before we plant Oilseed Rape. The field is the same one that we cut on the 28th July late into the night. The fuel usage of the tractor is in the region of 40L/hr depending on whether he's going uphill or down. This equates to about 20l/ha or (£8/ha), which is pretty ecomonical, for doing this sort of operation. Outputs of the 4m topdown on Cotswold brash have been in excess of 35ha/day or 86 acre's, when it dries out hopefully we can get rolling on the heavier land, where the operational costs will undoubtedly be greater.