Latest News / Events

The dry period continued through to the middle of July, with the Estate only receiving 30% of its annual rainfall in the March to July period. This is not surprising to us. When we assessed our winter cereal crop potential at the end of May, we witnessed the loss of ‘tillers’ and a reduced ‘grainRead More ⤍

We’ve had some rain! So far, we’ve had just over an inch of rain – mainly at night – which is most welcome.Our sugar beet and maize crops have improved almost immediately and now look well. Our winter cereal crops really did struggle during this extremely dry period. From the 1st Marchto the 23rd May,Read More ⤍

The weather continues to be the ‘hot topic’! We only recorded 16.8mm of rain in March and April – the lowest rainfall we’ve had since records began at this site in 1948! Farm operations have been good, with seed beds prepared well and crops establishing into moisture in a timely manner. We started irrigating grassRead More ⤍

The weather has continued to be on our side! We recorded 6.7mm of rainfall in March. A small amount, but not the driest March we’ve ever had – in 1961 we recorded 5.1mm and 5.8mm in 1948. Our soils probe readings from the beginning of March showed our fields were at field capacity, Our hopeRead More ⤍

Apologies for the gap in news from the farm, but we have been rather busy – the weather has been on side! Our sugar beet has been successfully lifted and now sits safely in clamps or maus heaps, ready for collection throughout the rest of this month. Congratulations to all of those involved in thisRead More ⤍

This week’s cold weather has unfortunately held up our sugar beet lifting programme. As a result, we have very little stock left on farm, so hopefully the milder conditions next week will allow us to get more up. We’ve started drilling our spring barley and we presently have 25% drilled. Winter filling of our mainRead More ⤍

Our winter harvest of sugar beet continues – we’re now approaching 60% lifted. Our yields remain good and over 30% of the contract has been delivered. We continue to load out wheat to Kerry’s at Gainsborough and we are busy emptying our grain stores at Mickleholme Farm for the last time. We have been busyRead More ⤍

Yesterday saw the end of our crop drying season, with a final 70 tonnes of grass being dried as feed stock or for chlorophyll extraction. British Chlorophyll have been busy recently and are well ahead of their feedstock plan. If this continues, we will be out cutting grass early next spring – lets hope weRead More ⤍

We’re now getting towards the end of our forage crop harvest for our crop drier and we are now busy finishing lucerne and timothy pellets. BCC grass will now be cut for the final time and we have also completed irrigating for the year. The grass and lucerne season has been a good one, withRead More ⤍

Our combinable crop harvest was trouble free – and dry – so, a very cheap one! Wheat was excellent after a range of drilling dates on the Heath and this has propped up our heavy land fields, which have seriously underperformed. Light land wheat was 10% above the 5-year average, whilst heavy land was 35%Read More ⤍