A few updates.
We got the wheat in a few weeks ago. Thought it was ready, but came off at 20% moisture still so took some drying. Dried yield worked out just over 3t/acre and 10 round bales of straw/acre so quite happy with that off 120 units of Nitrogen and the Take All challenge we saw.
No more winter cereals going in the ground this year but our main arable field has been ploughed down and just sown out to a short term clover grass mix hopefully delivering plenty of multi cut silage over next few years off minimal inputs. It will also act as a soil improver building soil structure and fertility before going back into cereals in 4 years time and we will also aim to finish lambs off this grazing back at end of the season.
The other smaller field we are planning to put in to wild bird food for next 5 years through the Environmental Farming Scheme and will be established in the spring.
We've experimented with our first ever direct drill reseed. A grass clover mix drilled into sprayed off old sward.
Four weeks on and looking as follows...
The above not quite representative of the whole the field. Despite my hopes that minimal soil disturbance would reduce the dock burden, they are coming on thick and fast but our biggest challenge is going to be the chickweed which is absolutely flying!
Elsewhere on the farm our cold turkey zero input grazing block is still going from strength to strength with clover from the seedbank.
So all gone a bit mad on the clover but see it as an essential ingredient to the future of the farm here.
And we've taken the plunge on the future of our flock with these two Easycare ram lambs arriving the other week.
