Last year's harvest broke all records by a big margin.  This year has been even better.  Wheat yields are down slightly but barley is up; sugar beet is at least 12 tons per acre with sugar over 18% and the crop drier has produ ced over 100 tons more lucerne than ever before.  As always, we have the weather to thank for these results.  Almost constant rain during the spring and early summer is just what our thin land needs.  Given these good conditions we must ensure that the seeds are planted early and the crop remains healthy - neither of which are impossible tasks with modern methods.  But without lots of rain we cannot grow the sort of crops we have enjoyed for the past two years.

We have manage d to buy another 80 acres of land which adjoin the farm, making a total of 200 acres bought in the past twelve months.  This new land will mean that we no longer need to grow sugar beet on white chalky land at Foxton which has never been really satisfactory.  Other highlights of the year include the arrival of the first two Schluter tractors imported into this country, the new grainstore for 800 tons of corn and 60 tons of herbage seed and, sadly, the departure of the Jersey herd after sixty nine years.

CEREALS (1400 acres)

 This was our second year of High Input cereal growing and we increased our use of fungicides substantially.  All winter corn had a routine application of Carbendazim (against eyespot) in addition to Bayleton (twice for barley and once for wheat) and Cycocel, a growth regulator, on wheat only.  An insurance spray of aphicide turned out to have been completely unnecessary and outbreaks of fusarium on the wheats in July were impossible to con trol.  The wheat was slightly disappointing after last year's extremely good results.  Hobbit again did best and Mardler comfortably broke the three ton barrier even if the sample looked terrible.  Huntsman managed to give over three tons on Thriplow Heath which is not bad for the second year on thin land.  The new NSDO varieties, Iona and Sentry were rather disappointing in terms of quantity.  Winter Barleys continued to improve.  The yield of Maris Otter has increased f or the last five consecutive years and now stands at a very respectable 47cwt per acre.  Sonja was disappointing but Igri (averaging 51cwt over 220 acres) was the success story of the year.  The spring corn did better than ever before and it looks as if the Jupiter will yield a comfortable 45cwt. The gamble with Maris Highbury, the bearded spring wheat, appears to have come off but it remains to be seen what it will do in a normal dry spring.

Next year the acreage of winter corn will i ncrease yet again.  In the past five years it has gone from 42% of our cereal acreage to 88% and it is hard to see how this figure can increase.  Indeed in a wet autumn the prospect of drilling over 1400 acres is not a pleasant one.  As far as new varieties are concerned, we shall be growing the two new NSDO wheats, Avalon and Brigand, and will be dropping Hobbit, Huntsman, Mink and Ark Royal.  The two wheats have probably been more successful than any other varieties we have ever grown and it is therefore difficult to stop growing them.  But in the seed trade, with its ever-increasing number of varieties each year, we have to try and anticipate what varieties will be needed some three or four years ahead of the market.  This makes our lives all the more interesting as it means that we see these varieties before most other farms have even heard of them.

SUGAR BEET (300 acres)

At the time of writing it looks as if this will be our best sugar beet year in r ecent years with the average yield around 14 tons per acre and a sugar content of 18%.  As if this were not enough, we have at last managed to grow clean sugar beet.  The only weed problem has been black bindweed on certain fields which has made lifting difficult.  The cause of this weed has been our use of Goltix which is an exceptionally good spray against all other weeds and has the advantage of being very gentle on the beet themselves.  A twelve row drill and hoe based on the new Fendt toolcarrier has made spring work easier and quicker and there is no doubt that this has improved our weed control.  The absence of couch grass in our samples has amazed the staff at the Ely Sugar factory who have traditionally been able to recognize Thriplow beet on the lorry from a great distance.

CROP DRIER (400 acres lucerne)

The production of 850 tonnes beat our old record by 100 tonnes.  This was due to various factors which included the fact that we had no zero-gr azing this year and we did work 24 hours a day for six weeks towards the end of the season. The operators' skills have been higher than in the past, but in spite of this the running costs have been high, culminating in a new drum having to be sent over from Germany in September.

CATTLE (170 head)

The Jerseys departed on April 26th and all of a sudden life became much simpler. No milking, no slurry, no feeding calves.  But no monthly milk cheque either. The beef herd will be built up to 120 suckler cows.  The calves will be kept for 18 months and will make use of our arable by-products like barley straw and beet tops.  They will also use the paddocks which could not be ploughed up.  We may even start a small pedigree Charolais herd.

MUSTARD (90 acres)

A very low price has meant that this year's crop is still unsold.  The yield has been above average at about 12cwt per acre.  Compared to rape, mustard is not a very attractive break crop hut has th e advantage of simplicity.

OILSEED RAPE (90 acres)

The first of our two fields was combined just before the monsoons of late July. The yield of 22cwt per acre was good and the oil content of 45% outstanding. The other field was only just salvaged from the weather after the swaths had turned green with chitted seed.  An heroic effort on the combines which ended after 1am meant that we did manage to get about 15cwt per acre.  The drying and handling costs were enormous and the mes s inside the combines took 24 hours to scrape off.  Desiccation would have been the solution this year had we only known what the weather was going to do.

HERBAGE SEED (60 acres)

Just over 8cwt per acre is a perfectly respectable yield from S24 perennial ryegrass, even if it was not as good as last year's.  The crop was combined just in time to miss the rain and the sample was very clean.  Next year we shall be growing another variety, Barenza, in addition to our normal S24.   This is a late maturing variety which will come ripe in the middle of harvest.  However, with the new drying facilities we should be able to cope with 100 acres of herbage seed quite comfortably.

CLOVER SEED (56 acres)

At the beginning of the year it looked as if there would not be a crop of Kentish Red Clover to harvest because the plant population was so thin.  But does not seem very important with clover and when we finally came to harvest the field at the end of October we found that we had nearly 4cwt of clean seed to the acre.  The price of £50 per hundredweight together with an EEC subsidy meant that the crop has been a success.

MACHINERY

The tide of foreign machinery has become a flood.  The English farm machinery manufacturers seem to be following the same path as our motorcycle manufacturers a decade ago.  This is a tragedy for them and a disaster for this country.  From time to time this farm is able to buy English tackle safe in the knowledge that it is the best available.  This year we did buy two Sanderson rough terrain fork lift trucks which are both English and excellent.  Everything else was foreign and was usually bought simply because there was not an English model in existence. We needed a big combine, there is no English one made.  We needed a 12 row beet hoe; an English one does not exist.  The same applies to the hydraulically folding Cambridge rolls, to the mower-conditioner, to the w ide set of heavy discs.

The following machinery was bought this year (* = foreign): Claas Dominator 105 combine*.  Fendt 275GT toolcarrier*.  12 row beet hoe. 12 row bandsprayer,  19ft wide Bush Hog offset discs*.  2 Schluter 7800TVL tractors*.  2 Sanderson SB55TC fork lift trucks.  Vaderstad 10 metre folding rolls,  Fahr hay tedder*.  Krone mower-conditioner*.

THE FUTURE

We shall try and make better use of our experience in growing seeds by exp anding this side of the business.  The herbage seed acreage will be doubled and the oil seed rape (a new variety called Jet Neuf) is being grown for seed.  The work involved is undoubtedly greater than for commercial crops but we are all used to cleaning machines between varieties and taking great care over small details so that the difference should not present any serious problems.  Certainly the rewards are greater and it will help our reputation as professional and efficient seed pr oducers.

Cultivation systems will remain as they have been for the past two years.  We shall continue to use a High Input approach to cereals with prophylactic spraying of fungicides.  The amount of winter corn will not increase from today's level of 88%.  Indeed it is hard to see what will happen in a difficult autumn when we are faced with over 1400 acres of corn to drill.  We shall not return to combine drilling and will continue using a contractor to spread fertiliser for us.  We have no plans at present to switch to direct drilling but we shall continue to make great use of our big set of discs after burning the stubble.

After two exceptionally good years we must brace ourselves for a return to 'normality'.  Indeed many people are now saying that the Great Years for Cereals are over and that there may well be a surplus of wheat and barley produced in Europe next year.  If this is the case we shall be all the more thankful that we gain the benefit s of a seed premium.
 

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