Meads Farming Updates
Hello! And thank you for reading our farming update. We are Tom and Alice and are keen to share with you what is going on in the fields around Barrington, Foxton and in the wider farming landscape. Tom does the farming at Meads Farm in Foxton and I do the writing. I also work at a research and educational farm called The Allerton Project.
JULY 2024
July…..and it all gets a bit tense on the farm. The “Harvest Twitch” has well and truly set in. Symptoms include: excessive washing of the combine harvester, constant grain testing with the moisture meter, phoning other farmers to compare grain moisture percentages and inability to commit to doing anything in case of combining or “cutting” (tech term). It’s a thrill.
Harvest starts when the crop is “ripe” which means it is ready to harvest and the grain is dry enough to harvest. You measure how dry the grain is with a special moisture meter. You put some grain in, turn a handle and it gives you a percentage. If you harvest grain that is too wet, either you have to dry it with a grain dryer (which we don’t have) or it goes mouldy. The winter barley needs to be less than 15%, which means it needs to be less than 14% on the moisture meter. I don’t know why this is, twitchy farmers don’t like too many questions.
As I sit here on the 17th July, the winter barely is ready but a bit wet after another deluge of rain on Monday night, so we are awaiting the sunshine…… that makes this the latest start to harvest in the last five years. Harvests generally have been getting earlier, but with the wet weather this spring the crop has taken longer to die off than normal and the continued rain means it hasn’t “turned” (another tech term) as early as normal. This isn’t necessarily a problem and can mean there is more and healthier crops to harvest….but it doesn’t help the Harvest Twitch.
The other problem you can get with very heavy rain is that big crops with lots of heavy grain in them get flattened by the rain and lie on the ground rather than standing up tall. This means the crops can take longer to dry and grain can fall onto to the ground (not where you want it).
Once they get going in theory different crops ripen and are “ready” (another tech term) at different times, which helps spread the workload over the harvest period….watch this space. Results will (hopefully!) be in next newsletter.
Just sunshine now please!
JUNE 2024
Quite a lot of rain for June, and not the warmest…..! But that is (nearly!) all forgotten as I sit here on a sunny Thursday morning in 20 degrees! The crops are all in and should be growing this time of year, so the weather hasn’t affected our operations much. The rain has meant we have some enormous looking crops. The beans and the oats particularly are easy to get lost in. Peter actually lost his dog for a time in the beans the other week which is an unexpected hazard.
However, we get paid for the grain not the volume and June is a crucial grain filling time. For that, we need sunshine…… so the cloudy, cold and wet weather may have affected the yield. We will see – how exciting…!
We hosted Open Farm Sunday at Allerton where I work on the 9th June and had a brilliant (if chilly) day. 306 people came out to the farm to learn more about what farmers do, go out on a tractor trailer ride, see some lambs and piglets and learn about the work we do for wildlife around the farm. We are sorry we have not done a farm walk at Meads Farm this spring, but are keen to host one in the Autumn instead if people are interested so watch this space!
Other than that, we are just waiting for harvest to role around come July – more to come then!
MAY 2024
Overheard at Meads Farm:
“Now we’re farming”
“May is my favourite time on the farm…..so full of hope”
“I think that sugarbeet has actually grown whilst we’ve been standing here”
and, inexplicably:
“I actually have no complaints at all about the weather this month, and you can put that in your newsletter article”
ABSOLUTE SCENES, spirits are high, crops are growing, the requested week of sun alternating with the week of showers has happened over the last month, its all looking up. And, every farmers’ favourite TV show released a new series: Clarksons Farm – we can farm in the day and watch it in the evening. Perfect.
Our cereal crops are looking good and really getting going this time of year, it genuinely still surprises me how quickly they change at the moment. The sugarbeet has got off to a good start too and is starting to come up well. Tom has been busy this month applying some fertilizer to feed the crops and spraying plant protection products where necessary. Generally, its looking good but one thing you might notice is blackgrass poking its head up above the crop. This is a really tricky weed for us to manage as we cannot do much about it once it is in the crop. It can cause a significant yield drop and we need to use an Integrated Pest Management approach to help manage it. This includes a good rotation and delayed drilling (later planting) of wheat in the autumn.
I walked around the main farm block in Foxton yesterday on a sunny Sunday and was brilliant to hear the skylarks singing their hearts out and see the hares everywhere running (…and eating the sugarbeet). The hedge that was laid in the winter is starting to spring back into life and the new hedge has new shoots emerging. It is a nice time to be out.
This month also saw the inaugural Women in Farming Awards at the House of Commons. I was lucky enough to attend and really enjoyed the evening celebrating the many talented women contributing great things in this industry. June also brings Open Farm Sunday (https://farmsunday.org/) to the masses! It is on the 9th June and loads of farms across the country open to the public. We are not opening this year as we will be helping at the Allerton event in Leicestershire where I work (all very welcome!) but the nearest to Barrington is RSPB’s Hope Farm in Knapwell. Do take a look if you or your family would like the opportunity to get out on farm. Both of these events make me think and miss my old boss and friend Caroline Drummond, who died two years ago this month. Caroline ran LEAF for thirty years, started Open Farm Sunday and was a great woman in farming. I say again this year that if you want to be inspired by what one person can do for the environment in (a too short) lifetime then look her up.
More of the same weather for June would be great (but a sunny day for Tom and I’s wedding please! 😊)
APRIL 2024
Hurrayyyyy!!!! Some dry weather. Farming has been back on at Meads farm this month. Fertiliser has been going on and crops have been growing. Despite all the weather, the crops planted in autumn on the farm look great (at the moment), and bar a few wet/flooded spots, have done well. Phew.
The soil even dried up enough to plant the spring crops. The sugarbeet is all planted so your sweet tooth is safe! And the spring barley is in, so the beer will be made! All this happened on the easter weekend, so that was a busy one for Tom and Peter, but such is the life of a farmer. The windows of opportunity to get on the land with tractors to cultivate, plant, spray and fertilise are getting ever shorter with this extreme weather we are having. For example, it needs to be not raining while you are doing anything (if you are applying fertilizer or pesticide, if it is raining it will wash away). It needs to not be too windy (again if you are applying anything, you want it going exactly where you’re putting it and not blowing anywhere). The land needs to be dry enough to travel with a tractor (you don’t want to compact the soil, or worse, get stuck). It needs to not be too dry (stuff doesn’t grow when too dry and products don’t work). In “normal” years these parameters leave plenty of days to do the work. But we haven’t had a normal year for a while, so in our case this spring has left just enough days to do the work, with no spare. This can be a bit stressful as you have to constantly be ready to go, whenever conditions allow (easter egg hunt or not). But we are very pleased it is all in and well done to Tom and Peter!
It is quite a different picture elsewhere, however. The parameters are the same, but in Leicestershire where I work, we have more rain, wetter soil and cooler temperatures which means we have not had enough days to do the work. And now it is too late. If we plant the crops now, they won’t have enough time to grow before harvest and that will either mean low yields and/or late harvests and it is no longer economical to crop. So we will plant a summer cover crop instead. This will hopefully improve the soil and reduce the weed burden to leave the land better for next year. It will not however, produce any harvestable crop. The economic consequences of this for us and many others are significant.
Hurray for spring coming. Not to be too specific but Tom said he would like a week of dry, followed by a week of showers alternately for the next couple of months.
MARCH 2024
Still wet. Still muddy. Still grumpy farmers.
This is not just a Cambridgeshire problem, for anyone travelling around the country, no doubt you will have seen quite a lot of wet soggy fields with not a lot of crops in them…..and everyone is getting a bit scratchy – if you see a farmer around, buy them a pint.
The main issue for this at the moment is that it is difficult to get on the land with tractors, because you might damage the soil…..or in extreme circumstances, get stuck. And getting stuck in a tractor is quite dramatic (just ask Peter).
We need to get on the land to fertilize the crops currently in the ground and to plant new crops. Tom is hoping to plant Spring Barley and sugarbeet. He has done a bit, but the windows before the rain comes are very short.
At work in Leicestershire, we have done nothing! And a lot of the crops we did plant in winter have failed due to the heavy rain so need re-planting, so we have even more to do. There is a much “heavier” and more clayey soil type in Leicestershire which stays a lot wetter than the “lighter” chalkier soil we have at home. We also have (marginally) more rain and are a bit higher up and therefore colder. This means it takes longer for the soil to dry out and is a bit less forgiving.
Soil is made up of clay, sand and silt, and the ratio of these determine your “soil type”. At Allerton we are firmly in the “clay” category. At Meads Farm we are a bit more variable but more in the middle loamy category.
Your soil type determines a lot about your ability to grow crops and which crops you can grow. Land is then classified into Grade 1, 2, 3 and 4 based on soil, site and climate. This gives you an indication of how good it is at growing stuff and in turn indicates the value of it. Most of Meads is on Grade 2 land, whereas at work we are more Grade 3 to Grade 4. You can change the health of your soil and influence this through lots of the practices we have talked about, but you cannot change your soil type.
More positivity will resume next month…..hopefully……the rain is good for the trees we have planted and the new hedge!
FEBRUARY 2024
Still quite a quiet time on the farm in February, especially such a wet February! Not a lot of farming to be done when it is so wet and still cold. Tom has been doing some fertilizing in the drier periods, so the crops have food to grow. Peter has also been doing some ploughing of land ready for spring drilling.
We had some sheep on the farm over the winter which was very exciting. These belonged to another farmer, and came in to graze our “cover crops”. We planted the cover crops around September. The seeds are a mixture of different plants with different qualities. Cover crops are not harvested or sold but instead planted in order to keep the soil covered to protect it from the rain and keep roots in the soil to keep it healthy. They are also good for wildlife and pretty. They grew really well and worked brilliantly….however, you have to get rid of them to allow you to plant the next “cash crop” – i.e. one you can sell. Enter, the sheep. The sheep munch it down, making it easier to then establish the crop. The sheep seemed to enjoy it too!
Maintenance is also ongoing with some hedge cutting and ditch maintenance. This is done in the winter to minimize impact on wildlife, and nesting birds particularly. The hedges need to be kept in check to stop them expanding too far into the field. The ditches need clearing to allow the water (of which there is a lot) to leave the land.
More rain, more flooding. The field next to the river in Barrington is flooded again as I sit and write this. That land is soon going to go into a legume fallow under the new Sustainable Farm Incentive as it is getting too tricky to crop with all the extreme rainfall.
To confirm, please stop raining!
JANUARY 2024
Happy New Year everyone! And hasn’t it been a wet and cold one so far! Not a lot of farmin’ happening over the last few weeks, quite a lot of lookin’ and sucking teeth about how wet it is. Rest assured if you thought it was wet, farmers across the land have “never seen it so wet”, “never seen water on that field before” and “never known it this bad”. It is a serious business though and represents the current biggest impact of climate change to those working on the land, that of extreme weather events and how to adapt to them. Most of the crops on the farm here are okay, but about 50% of the seeds planted in Leicestershire where I work have rotted in the ground. This means lots of wasted seeds, costs and energy in planting them. We can replant in spring, but the yields will be lower. Resilience in farming systems is increasingly becoming the most important thing.
In this theme, in the last month we have applied for and been accepted onto the Sustainable Farming Incentive. Defra are redesigning the environmental payment schemes after leaving the EU and this is one of them. The schemes have been quite slow coming out but are starting to look quite good. This agreement will last three years and will give payment for things like intercropping, cover crops, soil testing, hedge management, integrated pest management and winter bird food which is brilliant. All these measures cost money to do but will help improve the resilience of the farm and reduce environmental impact. In January there was also an announcement that even more measures would be available from Autumn, so we are looking forward to taking some of those up next year.
January is also the time for weekends away…..but all in the name of personal and professional development! Tom and I have both done a Rural Leadership Course in the and you are encouraged to host reunions to help continue the learning. For these, we often visit someone’s patch of the UK, visit where they farm or work and then visit a few other businesses. It is a brilliant opportunity to meet up, discuss farming issues and have a few beers. Last weekend we went down to Devon and visited another research farm called North Wyke, a big farm and contracting business and Shallowford Farm which is a farm and trust that hosts visits for children and groups from urban areas ( https://www.shallowfordfarm.co.uk/ ). A great time was had.
The course is run by the “Worshipful Company of Farmers”. WCF are the livery company for farmers in the City of London and there are Worshipful Companies of all sorts of other industries too. As well as wearing robes and hosting fancy dinners their core aim is to provide “inspiring leadership and management training for anyone engaged in the Agricultural industry”. They do this very well through running a number of courses dedicated to these areas. Like many industries, agriculture is under a bit of pressure and operating in a complex environment. We need to deliver safe and healthy food and regenerate the ecosystems in which we farm, in a system that isn’t always well designed to do this. We feel very lucky to have taken advantage of one of these courses and be in an industry that offers these opportunities.
Probably discussed the weather enough!
DECEMBER 2023
Hedges Hedges HEDGES! Sorry if I sound over excited, its because I am. We have had 900m of new hedges planted on the farm this month! If you are walking from Foxton to Fowlmere hopefully you will see it along two sides of a field. Hedges provide valuable habitat on the farm for birds, pollinators, insects and mammals and also provide lots of berries for food. They help sequester lots of carbon too as well as act as wildlife corridors or highways through the farmed landscape allowing wildlife to move about.
Our new hedge doesn’t quite do this yet……they’re a bit spindly and small so far….but the future is bright, the future is hedge. To protect them from being eaten by the deer, they begin their life in a plastic tube. To stop them being overrun by weeds, they have also been planted through a hessian type mat which stops the weeds coming through to begin with and then should biodegrade as they get going.
Once hedges have been planted and grown, they require management. This can be through cutting hedges in the winter months but also through techniques like hedge laying or coppincing. We have also had a hedge layed in the last month which you may also see if you are walking from Foxton to Fowlmere. The idea of this technique is to give your hedge “more bottom”. Historically this would have been done to prevent animals escaping through hedges, but in addition, animals like to nest in the bottom of hedges and this helps give them more cover. The top bits are cut away and the main trunks of the plants are cut through nearly all the way (but not quite) and then bent over and weaved together. It is a highly skilled craft, and we are grateful to George who has done a top job. Different areas of the country lay hedges in different ways depending on the reasoning, tools and skills available historically.
Depending on management, farmland can provide a vast range of habitats for wildlife and have shaped the species we see around us today. At Allerton we are big fans of managing habitat with great attention to detail so it can deliver as much as possible for biodiversity. Another slightly different approach is “rewilding” and I was lucky enough to visit two rewilding sites this month. The Knepp estate in Sussex has been allowing part of their estate to rewild for a number of years and it was really interesting to see the development of scrubland and associated species. Wild Ken Hill is slightly earlier in the process but equally has had some interesting findings. They have also released herbivores into the areas to start to recreate some of the actions of herbivores in the wild. If you are interested, I would recommend the book Wilding which is written by one of the creators of Knepp to find out more.
Not much farm news, stuff is hopefully growing rather than drowning….!
To repeat last month “Normal” winter weather would be great. Please stop raining.
NOVEMBER 2023
November brings the beginning of the slightly quieter period on the farm. All the crops are planted and we are waiting for them to get established and grow a little before the harsher winter months. But what rain we have had since they were planted! Having rushed to get all drilled up before it got too wet to travel on the land, we had so much rain that we were worried the seeds would rot before they even got started. Some of the fields were flooded for a bit but most of the water has receded and most of the seeds have survived. As farmers, we feel the effects of the increasing “extreme weather events” more than many and it is a challenge. Increasingly, we are thinking what is the best and most resilient use of different areas of land taking into account the increasing wet and dry periods. This might depend on the soil type, drainage and proximity to watercourses. As I say, most of the farm here is still looking well, but the farm I work at in Leicestershire is much wetter, so we are considering putting more land into grassland or woodland rather than continue to try and crop it going forwards.
We have also had most of the sugarbeet harvested this month which is looking good! (That optimism striking again!) We won’t know for sure until it all goes into the factory at Bury St Edmunds but expectations are high because of all the rain we had through the summer. When the sugarbeet goes into factory you are told the total weight and sugar %, and you get paid on both. How exciting. Tom is currently deciding whether to grow sugarbeet next year. The price is set through negotiation between British Sugar (who buy it all) and NFU Sugar (who represent the farmers). This year it has been dramatic……the negotiations broke down and British Sugar went over NFU Sugar’s head and offered a prince to the farmer direct. Cue extraordinary general meeting and a lot of shaking of heads. The situation is not yet resolved. Watch this space.
The other exciting thing is that we have some sheep on the farm! Not our own, they are on holiday from Baldock. Last month, we talked about all the lovely cover crops that have been planted to cover the soil over winter. The next problem you have is there is too much of them to get rid of before we plant the cash crop. Enter the sheep, who eat down the cover crop to a level that can be ploughed in ready for the next crop.
“Normal” winter weather would be fine for now.
OCTOBER 2023
And so….we go again! October marks the beginning of the farming year here at Meads Farm as we start planting the crops. So with the start of the year, comes the first (of many) farming gambles….ahem sorry…..decisions: when to drill (plant) the crops. This might seem like a straightforward one, just get on with it….but it is not. Blackgrass is a very damaging weed for us here and by waiting longer to drill, (delayed drilling) we can reduce the amount of weed in the crop. But, wait too long and the rain comes, and then you can’t drill at all. And as we all know, the wheat “won’t grow in the bag” so there are trade-offs to be made, discussions with the agronomist to be had and rain gauges to watch.
The agronomist is a many called Andy who advises on crop health – a “crop doctor” if you like. Keeping plants healthy, protecting them from pests and disease and reducing weed pressure is a crucial role on the farm and helps improve yields and efficiency and reduce waste. Andy will regularly walk the fields to look for signs of pests and disease and when these reach a threshold where they could be damaging, advise Tom on action. Sometimes this will involve spraying herbicides or fungicides, but increasingly we are looking for other methods of control, such as encouraging beneficial insects (like ladybirds) to eat pests. Drilling later will help reduce the requirement for herbicide but what we save in herbicide, we make up for in Cortisol when 60mm of rain comes over the crucial weekend……. However, as I sit here now, Tom is about 80% of the way through with 36 hours before it rains again. So its all go.
Crucially (for me), for anyone who remembers from last month… the wheat has been planted alongside the beans! And the beans have survived their first ordeal (Tom was worried the drill might uproot some of them) and are going strong. Intercropping trial still live! Will keep you posted.
The sugarbeet should also be harvested in the next month or so. This is done by a contractor with a specialist sugarbeet harvester so dependent on when they want to come and harvest. Last year, the sugarbeet yield was poor because it had so little rain, this year it looks good…..and so the optimism builds again…..
Weather wise, we would like it to not rain for a few days so the crop can go in, and then I don’t think we mind too much for a while.
Thanks for reading!
Alice and Tom