Testing The New Irrigation Mains

A very exciting day today as we test fired our new underground mains irrigation system extension, having put half in 2 years ago. Here is the momentous moment when the water finally appeared some 2.2km's way from the reservoir.

EBLEX Sheep Farmers Meeting

On Thursday the 14th May we hosted a sheep group meeting organised through EBLEX (English Beef and Lamb Executive) and the NSA (National Sheep Association) to look at sheep handling, grassland management and feeding sheep more effectively. We had nearly 100 people turn up, the weather stayed dry all through the afternoon and a good time was had by all. I think everyone, no matter how experienced, would have learnt something from the event. They were all treated to a Subway sandwich, cookie and crisps for their supper, which rounded the evening off well and for many a very new experience!

Autotrac on 6930

This is the John Deere autotrac system working on our 6930 drilling spring barley last week. The tractor is GPS guided pulling the drill at 4m intervals across the field (we hope) The system was added to the tractor last summer to help reduce the costs of further chemical applications by not overlapping the passes and thus the fertiliser or pesticides subsequently applied. Once set up the system is fairly accurate. This should then make sure that the tramlines for the sprayer are exactly 36meters apart. A small inaccuracy of say 10cm, over 9 passes (9x4=36) equates to the tramlines being 90 out in either direction, which is quite a lot.

Spring Ploughing

With the dry weather returning we employed Phil Odam Farm Contractors to spread some organic mushroom compost ahead of spring barley on some light land. The compost is great stuff for increasing the soils organic matter, which will help retain moisture in a dry year (not required for the last two!) and make it easier to cultivate in the future, oh and great food for worms as well! It has a few nutrients in it as well to help the crop get established and to feed it when it starts warming up and the nutrients are released by microbial activity. Having ploughed the field, we'll wait a few days for the top to dry out and then drill more 'Tipple' spring barley.

Derek was loading the compost yesterday and today he was ploughing it all in, to reduce the risk of air pollution to our neighbours (wouldn't want the air to smell like the countryside now would we)! It also helps to lock up any nitrogen, stopping it from being released into the atmosphere.

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.

First One's Out

At last spring must be nearly here. we started lambing on the 9th on February, in the middle of the snow period and had to keep the lambs and ewes inside for 10 days before they could be turned

out into much sunnier weather. These lambs are down in Conderton and will soon be moved up into the plum orchard, when the grass starts to grow a little. If you want a closer first hand experience of lambing sheep our Farm Lambing Day is on the 11th April this year. Tractors and trailers will be departing from Overbury Village Hall from 10 am until 3pm to take you to the sheep pens.

All Weather Wallers

The annual purge on farm maintenance begins again, this year, with Andrew off sick (who usually maintains the stone walls), Matthew and Steve have been employed to continue all the good work. This scene was this morning, when half of the country couldn't get to work because of the snow fall, Matthew and Steve were already hard at work, with Jed, Matthew's dog. Here they are at Lalu, straightening up a collapsed wall before starting the re-building process. Most of the stone can be re-used but we will have to get some extra supplies to finish the job. We think there is about 3 weeks work this winter for the two of them. The walls fall down when animals try to jump over them, or because of frosty or wet weather degrading the wall. Other winter maintenance jobs include willow coppicing or pollarding depending on where you were brought up. This is Derek and Gordon pollarding the willow on Manor Farm on the main road from Conderton to Beckford. The tree limbs that were cut down were used to make 'Scotch' Fencing further down the road where a car went off the road straight through a hedge! This year we have had 4 cars drive through various hedges causing lots of damage. Most of the time the car drivers manage to get out and escape but with the fields being so wet we have managed to catch the last one before they could escape!