My first blog, my name is James & we have a mostly tenanted farm. The farm is spread over three steading. The cattle numbers range from 180-200 on and off, all depending upon the on the time of year. The farms are on (mostly) free draining land on the Northern end of the Eden valley. For my first blog I thought I’d write something about home mixing & what I find works well for me. With over 100 acres or so of barley (roughly 90 spring /... 

All in all things have gone fairly smoothly over the last few weeks. We finished the wheat harvest successfully in the dry period around the end of August. Worries about completing the OSR planting behind winter wheat were allayed when we got that all finished in the first 10 days of September with the one pass Bio drill. All 179ha is up and looking fantastic. We had to wait another three weeks for the spring rape to ripen but we then managed to pick... 

I farm in a Joint Venture operation with two neighbours in Oxfordshire and we combine over 2,000 ha. crops with two Claas 770 combines. We also have rotational silage maize and grass and farm over an area stretching over 20 miles from one end to the other. Soils are generally fairly light running from gravel through chalk to heavier clay cap plus around 160 ha. of free-draining ‘fen land’. We have been extremely fortunate in having a good year... 

Oram and Sons is a family farming business on the north side of the Pewsey Vale in Wiltshire. Six partners in the business include three generations, though my Grandfather is less involved these days than he used to be. The daily running of the farm is down to my father, Philip, my uncle, Richard, cousins Nick and James and myself. In total we farm almost 1,000 Ha., including around 200 Ha. share-farmed plus bits and pieces of rented land. We have... 

Harvest 2013 is now well and truly underway with many winter barley crops now harvested and progress has been made with some spring barley and winter wheat. Winter OSR has been the most variable with some farms finished, some not started and some have the 2013 and the 2014 crops both in the ground! I have also have seen some crops of borage in Essex which have been swathed and harvested. Hyvido winter barley has provided some outstanding yields this... 

Harvest started in the southwest with blazing sun and a blaze of activity, summer showers have now slowed progress as combines wade their way through mottled crops of oilseed rape , oats and spring barley. Wheat is largely an aspiration for the middle of next week. Quality on winter barleys has been superb with our boldest Cassia sample over 70 kg/hl and a thousand grain weight of 58 grams, yields have been variable but generally good. The Pearce...