Farmer Focus: Cutting weeds to reduce seed return
John Pawsey © Jason Bye Weeding has continued at Shimpling Park Farm.
With crops too big for the inter-row hoe we have switched to our Combcut which has been dealing with our fleshier weeds like charlock, docks and thistles. We have also just started cutting wild oats and other grasses with our Bionalan Weed Cutter. Both of these machines are made by Lyckegård.
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They are fire engine treatments, but if used at the right time do help to stop seeds setting as well as making my roadside fields more palatable to those who take note of our agronomic progress from over the hedge.
Talking about looking over the hedge, I revisited Ken Hill in Norfolk where the Buscall family farm with their estate director, Nick Padwick.
In my view, Ken Hill is the perfect example of where food production sits in equal terms alongside nature.
The rewilded part of the farm is where – with or without the old basic payment scheme – food production has never been profitable, while on the more productive land, Nick has adopted a maxed-out regenerative organic system.
I think that it’s fair to say that Nick is obsessed with soils and composting and the transformation at Ken Hill since my visit four years ago is something that they can all be proud of.
With his micromanaged composts and extracts, Nick showed us what could be done on challenging sandier soils where I dug spade after spade of soil, all of which was crawling with fungal hyphae –and that was just the stuff that I could see.
The smaller stuff Nick showed us in great detail under his microscope, transporting me back to my school’s science lab and a reminder that I only got a C in Biology “O” Level.
Good farming is always about the detail. Note to self: must try harder.
