After two exceptional harvests we were beginning to think that everything was too easy.  This year's harvest was therefore a bit disappointing when measured against 1977 and 1978 but it was still well above the average for the past five years.  Winter barley dropped by about 5% and the very small amount of spring corn actually showed a slight increase in yield over last year.  It was winter wheat which suffered most and yields dropped by 15%.  Perhaps it was lucky that prices rose 15% from last year's level and thus the overall financial results were not too bad.

The year was notable for the demise of the Crop Drier after six successful seasons.  Fuel costs have now risen so high that we shall be puttin g the Claas Apollo into mothballs until straw burning becomes a practical possibility or the Arabs reduce the price of oil.  Both prospects require one to be an optimist but straw burning cannot be ruled out. In other respects the year was one of consolidation rather than expansion.  No new buildings, no new land but more machinery which culminated in the arrival of the six row self-propelled Moreau beet harvester to lift our own and our neighbours' beet.

CEREALS

The autumn drou ght meant that germination was both poor and very slow. A very cold winter caused bad frost-lift which damaged all but the earliest drilled crops and meant that the plant population was reduced to around 60% of normal levels.  The farm in early spring looked a pretty sorry sight and we were not optimistic about harvest.  But then the rains came with a vengeance and from February until June we had just the sort of weather our thin land needs.  The corn perked up enormously and, providin g one did not get out of the car, the fields looked very good indeed by early June.  A six week drought followed which reduced yields by an amount which is impossible to estimate.

Diseases were held to a very low level - and so they should have been with our very expensive prophylactic spraying programme.  The massive invasion of greenfly was repulsed with Metasystox, which was just as well because some untreated wheats in this area were very shrivelled indeed.

One rather dismal a spect of the cereals on this farm is the continued advance of blackgrass.  Three years ago it was only present on the chalk to the north of the farm but since then it seems to be advancing about one mile a year.  This autumn we have noticed it on the hill at Duxford so we have now been gripped in a pincer movement.  The cost of blackgrass control at today's prices is over £13 per acre.

HERBAGE SEED (95 acres)

The one great success story this year.  Yields of S24 br oke all our previous records by giving 14cwt of dry clean seed per acre and the price looks pretty good too.  We were growing two varieties of perennial ryegrass for the first time and the Barenza, a late maturing crop, seems to have given about 11 cwt (only an estimate at time of writing).  The new drying facilities worked extremely successfully and we shall be doubling our acreage next year to make up for the reduced lucerne.  For the first time we shall be allowed to handle the seed in bulk which will make life a lot easier.

OILSEED RAPE (100 acres)

A disappointment.  Pigeons played havoc with the crop during the winter to such an extent we doubted whether we would ever have a crop at all.  To make matters worse we suffered very badly from barley volunteers which made combining and drying very difficult indeed. This year we have reverted to using Dalapon and Kerb instead of Pradone Plus and hope that this will solve the volunteer problem.  The fact tha t our rape was being grown for seed for the first time made the poor yields (17cwt) and contamination particularly embarrassing. Next year we shall be growing 180 acres of rape all for seed production.

CROP DRIER (450 acres lucerne)

A sad year which has seen the closing down of the Claas Apollo mobile crop drier after its sixth season.  Production was down 20/o from last year to 650 tonnes and fuel costs rose by 40% between May and October. It was the latter factor which finally persu aded us to stop drying because fuel alone was costing almost £50 per tonne of dried matter and even the richest livestock farmers start looking for alternatives when we charge them £100 per tonne.  The outlook for fossil fuels is very poor so we must rely on the development of a straw-burning furnace if we are to continue in this field

CATTLE (157 head)

The first full year without the Dairy Herd was something of a relief even if we missed the picturesque Jerseys in the pad docks round Thriplow.  We bought a pedigree Charolais bull who turned out to be called Oliver (the similarities ended here).  The single-suckled herd numbered 45 cows and a similar quantity of bulling heifers; this seems to be the maximum number we can carry throughout the summer without running out of grass and being forced to zero-graze.  Calving last winter went better than for many years which may have something to do with the fact that they were fed less and ignored more than in t he past.

MACHINERY

It would be pleasant to be able to report the long-awaited upsurge in English machinery had taken place on this farm but nothing could be further from the truth.  Indeed the trend towards foreign tackle has actually accelerated.  We decided to buy a large self-propelled forage harvester for the drier and found that an English machine did not exist. Likewise when we bought a six row self-propelled sugar beet harvester we were forced to buy a French machine.  ; Other notable events included our purchase of two small (95hp) Schluter tractors to replace three Fords and an enormous 8 metre set of Bush Hog discs to accompany the discs we got last autumn.  These discs have really revolutionised autumn cultivations by enabling us to prepare seedbeds faster than we can drill.  With the exception of the lucerne and sugar beet land we shall now give up ploughing completely and rely on these discs to cover nearly 2000 acres each autumn.  Machinery pu rchases this year (*=foreign) were as follows:- 1 Moreau AT64 self propelled beet harvester*.  1 Claas Jaguar 70SF Forage Harvester*.  1 8 metre Bush Hog tandem disc*~. 2 Schluter E5000V tractors*

THE FUTURE

The outlook for arable farming is worse than it has been for the past five years and we would be foolish to pretend otherwise.  Costs will rise next year by at least 15% and it would be surprising to see the prices we receive go up by more than 5%.  Indeed we may wel l see our prices remain static or even come down.  Thus we have decided to tighten our belts by making economies where practicable.  This is easier said than done but there is no doubt that the farm has become flabby over the past five years (witness the arrival of a new Range Rover in October).  We have also been able to afford a few fringe luxuries (trips to the Paris and the East of England Show) which will have to stop until the future looks brighter.  The combination of highe r bank interest, higher wages and higher mortgage repayments will alone cost an extra £40,000 next year, and this is before paying more for seed, fertiliser or sprays.

But it is not all gloom and doom.  We have decided to build what we hope will be the finest grain drying setup on any farm in England next year at a cost before grant of £100,000.  This should enable us to survive the next fifteen years with equipment which can handle increased yields and bigger throughput fr om better combines.  We are also working on a prototype six row beet topper and top-saver which consists of two Standen Multibeets joined together.  If this machine works successfully it will mean that we will be able to save tops for the beef cattle and keep in front of the Moreau at the same time.  Other developments include the fact that our herbage seed will be handled in hulk rather than in bags. This will cut out some of the most labour intensive work remaining on the farm and wi ll be essential when we start harvesting a total of 200 acres of herbage seed next year.

Our high input system for cereals will continue in spite of the likely squeeze on profit margins because we are convinced that it makes sense when growing high value seed crops on a very large acreage,  It does not mean, incidentally, that this approach is necessarily right for all cereal growers.  As far as new varieties are concerned we shall be growing NSDO' s latest winter wheat, called Norman, which promises to push the yields even higher than Brigand which did so well this summer.  The winter barley picture remains the same except that Sonja is being phased out and Igri has increased to over 450 acres,  Otter remains extremely successful providing it is kept clear of disease and will be grown here for some years to come.  However, the whole seed growing picture gets more confused with each succeeding year.  Varieties come and go with an amazing rapidity as can be seen from the fact that we have given up Mardler after only two years. We must accept this as a fact of life but hope that the Merchants do so also by giving us better premiums to compensate for the loss of a seed crop in the second year,  They too, however, are feeling the same pressures and we are extremely sympathetic to their plight.

Of all the changes which have affected this farm in the past few years the virtual disappearance of spring corn has had the most dramatic effects.  The y ear can now be split into distinct halves; from Christmas to early July we  have a period which is so slack that it is sometimes hard to find jobs to do.  The sugar beet drilling and hoeing can be done by one man on a 12 row machine, a bit of silage making and six weeks of rogueing wild oats are the only notable events throughout spring and early summer.  Admittedly the two sprayers are kept constantly in action with top dressings and other chemicals, but otherwise it's a sleepy period.

On about July 21st all hell breaks loose with the combines starting on the rape and herbage seed. From this date until the sugar beet is lifted in mid-December life becomes hectic.  The days when only haymaking and harve9t needed overtime are long gone and today it is the man who keeps spraying, drilling or combining until 8pm to finish the field who makes this farm successful.  As this is being written late on a November evening three trailers and the sugar beet harvester are out in the dark lifting the last five acres from a field so that the fertiliser can be spread tomorrow.  It always used to be said that "the difference between a good farmer and a bad one was fourteen days".  It is more like fourteen hours these days.  A farm like this has always depended on the skill of the staff, but today it is the willingness to work long hours when necessary which is even more important.  If credit for the success of the past five years should go to anyone it must b e to the people who sit on the tractors, run the grainstore or mend the machines late into the night. Without them this farm would be just another farm.  They have our thanks.

     1954   1979  %change
Employees    90   19  21%
Basic weekly wage   £5.90   £54.56  924%
Output per employee   £966   £36,842  3813%
Total Gross Income    £87000   £700,000 804%
Cost of sprays    NIL   £56,000  -------
Cost of a tractor   £570   £10600  1859%
Cost of a combine   £1480   £32,000  2162%
Winter wheat yield per acre  25cwt    60cwt    240%
Barley yield per acre   30cwt   48cwt  160%
Price of feed wheat (£/ton)& nbsp; £22   £95  431%
Malting barley (£/ton)   £36   £100  277%
 

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