What We Do
Contract Farming Agreements and Farm Business Tenancies will always be heavily competed for, but we can offer more than just a financial incentive; with our professional and sustainable approach, land will be cared for under our hand to maintain its long term value as an asset and a resource to those who own it.
The majority of our crops are now grown under a no tillage system using a Cross slot direct drill and utilizing cover crops and a diverse rotation wherever possible. We have lengthy experience growing all mainstream combinable crops including winter and spring varieties of milling wheat, malting barley, rye, oilseed rape, winter beans, peas, linseed, canary seed, soya and millet on all soil types from sand over gravel to London and marine clay. We use GPS technology extensively, including guidance and variable rate precision farming, and all tractors operate on low ground pressure tyres.
We are also partners in WLH Farms, our partnership business with George Wright Farms which enables us to bring potatoes and sugar beet into the equation, meaning all local and modern rotations can be catered for.
Our machinery fleet:
Tractors:
MF8730 – 300hp
MF7720 – 200hp
Sprayer/liquid fertiliser: Amazone Pantera self-propelled sprayer 30m/24m
Combine: Case 7230 AF on tracks
16t Western trailers on floatation tyres
Wheat following winter beans drilled with the Cross slot
Cross slot drill
After much reflection and research into how we can keep on top of blackgrass, improve our soils, successfully grow spring crops on heavy land and reduce fuel and machinery costs, we invested in a 5m Primewest Cross slot drill in 2015. This has been very successful – we now have confidence in the system and are already seeing the benefits of improved soil resilience, reduced weed burden, and lower fixed costs whilst maintaining production of quality high yielding winter and spring crops. Biodiversity on our farm is also much improved.
Here is a link to a video of a cross slot drilling wheat into a cover crop on our farm in early October 2015. Cross slot video
Gregoire Besson Discordon – The ultimate soil mixer. As a trailed machine, the Discordon has a huge advantage over similar mounted machines. However, this constant mixing of the soil has the danger of promoting blackgrass over time – one of the reasons we have moved to a mainly no till system.
Horsch Pronto 6m seed drill – Its main duties will be drilling after potatoes and onions, as well as any conventional drilling required by our customers.
Other equipment includes: JCB Loadall, Kuhn axis VRA fertiliser spreader, Techneat Avadex/small seed applicator, TWB subsoiler with Tillso legs, TWB Magic mole, Simba 5m toptilth, Dalbo 10m rolls, mowers, hedgecutter and a 6t tracked digger with tree shear and post hole borer.
General Management options include:
Cropping, agronomy, variable rate soil sampling and field mapping, drainage maintenance, hedge cutting and coppicing, flail mowing, basic forestry and meadow restoration.
Tree shear in action. Capable of shearing up to 7″, this machine can coppicing and windrow 400m of hedge in a day without having to pickup a chainsaw.
Environmental stewardship operations
We have lengthy experience growing and maintaining wild bird seed mixes, buffer strips, grass margins, pollen and nectar mixes, hedges, wetland habitat, cultivated fallow and woodland.