Jock Willmott, partner and agronomist at Ceres Rural, Cambridgeshire is Farmers Weekly’s Arable Adviser of the Year.

Jock Willmott has climbed the farming ladder from a teenager milking cows in the Brecon Beacons to working alongside leading crop production researchers in East Anglia, developing software and innovative business costings to assist with machinery replacement.

He moved into farm management in 2005 and is now a founding partner and technical lead at Ceres Rural – a start-up with consultants providing independent business advice to farmers and landowners.

This past year, the business has focused on advising people on coping with soaring input prices and the transition away from basic payments.

See also: Farmers Weekly Awards: 2022 shortlist announced

Large client base

Jock manages farms as well as a large agronomy portfolio. He covers 7,500ha of agronomy and 5,100ha of strategic agronomy advice.

He also manages a 650ha arable farm in Hertfordshire and administers a 1,300ha joint venture of three farming businesses.

He is very proud to provide agronomy advice to two recent Farmers Weekly Farmer of the Year award winners – Bedfordshire farm manager Andrew Robinson and Suffolk farm manager Edward Vipond.

Jock is serious about developing young agronomists to help develop their careers and grow the business at Ceres Rural.

The company will double the number of professionals in 12 months and will have a team of 14 trained agronomists who are comfortable delivering business and environmental advice.

The focus in the coming years is making sure the arable business is as profitable and sustainable as possible, which starts with better decision-making across the board – whether that’s regen agriculture, cover crops or more conventional farming systems.

Jock has started nitrogen trials and in-field diagnostic testing for disease. This aims to find out if more targeted inputs can help mitigate rising agrochemical costs and nitrogen inflation. 

Using social media to crowd-source interested growers, Jock designed a series of nitrogen response trials to assess how different nitrogen regimes will work this year, with a view to amending nitrogen strategy in 2023.

He is experimenting using Field View technology to give participating growers instant results as the plots are cut across the region. The data is in growers’ hands and is very transparent.

With net-zero targets in mind, Jock is also experimenting with different cereal varieties to assess their suitability to be grown in wide rows, as well as the potential for retaining green cover in between the rows. 

Concrete plans

Continuous improvement is the cornerstone of Jock’s work, and he aims to introduce at least one big improvement each year.

He is currently helping Essex grower Christopher Hill at Pattiswick Hall Farms, near Braintree, with grant improvements to fund 0.3ha of concrete repair to aprons in front of two straw yards to prevent water pollution and to help future-proof his business.

With new farm manager James Tubby in place at Pattiswick, Jock and the farming team will review crop establishment this winter.

They had been considering an 18m Horsch Avatar drill as part of the change and will review the yields, quality and agronomic factors where the drill was trialled last autumn. 

Besides agronomy and efficiency upgrades, Jock keeps a keen eye out for other opportunities for clients – everything from alternative crops, different contracts, Environmental Land Management, stewardship and capital grants to opportunities to take on more land or work closer with neighbours.

The other finalists were:

• Robert Daniel, self-employed, working closely with Agrii, York
• Andrew Pendry, Agrovista, Kent