The autumn drilling has progressed well with one of the easiest campaigns (so far) since 2018.

Cereal drilling started on 17 September and continued for 11 days straight, only stopping on the day of the Queen’s funeral. This got 95% of the cereals drilled with a small area remaining due to known grassweed issues.

Seed-beds have been excellent and remedial work has been carried out on compacted headlands after the middle of the field has been drilled.

See also: How Hampshire grower became Soil Farmer of the Year

About the author

Jack Hopkins

Arable Farmer Focus writer

Jack Hopkins is farm manager on a 730ha AHDB Monitor Farm in north Herefordshire on predominantly silty clay loam soils. Cropping includes wheat, barley, oilseed rape, spring oats and peas, plus grassland that supports a flock of 1,000 ewes and 25 pedigree Hereford cattle.

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Everything has been rolled and any heavy areas that have come up rough behind the drill have been double rolled.

Our oil seed rape is at varying stages from six true leaves to two true leaves, depending on drilling date.

Our last drilled OSR at the end of August has been the most challenging, with slug and cabbage stem flea beetle pressure. The majority of the area should be away now. However, we are going to have some thinner areas.

Last year, we were lucky enough to get a grant to cover our muck store.

This autumn was the first time we have emptied it, having had the manure stored undercover, and we have found it quite dry and not as easy to spread.

Our farmyard manure is of high straw content due to the majority of it coming from our sheep enterprise.

Going forward, we are looking at ways we can increase the amount of organic material we put back on the land, and this year we have trialled mixing coir with our farmyard manure (FYM) to make it go further.

The coir has been obtained from our own, plus surrounding fruit enterprises. It has no nutrient value, but provides a large amount of bulk and fibre.

This is something we would like to expand on next year, and even look at composting the mixed product to help solve our dry FYM problem.

So if anyone has any tips or advice on the topic, it would be great to hear from you.

With 70ha of winter beans being the last big task of the autumn, hopefully, the weather stays kind, and we can get wrapped up in good conditions and be happy with the work we have done!