Oakley Farms

we pride ourselves on a "clean" company image, helps portray the right picture to our customers, makes working life easier, being a LEAF Demo farm with visitors on site regularly tidiness is a must!

The next job is to fit the Biodrill to the 6 metre Flatlift and use it to drill rape this year, the Flatlift is going through a refurbishment with Shakerator legs being scrapped and Sumo type legs fitted with winged feet and a respray, then we will fit the seeder unit with the seed being dropped behind the leg at 70cm spacings hopefully improving establishment further and slotting in between 12 metre CTF lines and the rape acreage being subsoiled each year, many benefits! Marks on irrigation duties, two gates have been put up at the entrance to improve security at night but a fence is to be put up either side just to finish off. Finally we have had a local farm cleaning company in to wash out the grain store and all trailers, and sanitised ready for harvest, yards were done at the same time ready for Open Farm Sunday next week

The small list of jobs to do before harvest has turned into a rather large one, it could be less than 5 weeks before our combines start rolling which was a bit of a shock, still we have made some progress this last week, firstly with the upgrade of our 4 year old 6930, 4200 hours on the clock it was time to see it retire, so a 6120r joins the fleet to take over as Joe's tractor, being shared at harvest time, main roles include grain and spud carting, topping, hedgetrimming, rolling, seed carting, a general run around tractor, we didnt need anything too fancy so it has no Trimble but does have the new DirectDrive gearbox as oppose to AutoPowr. The 69 has gone back to the dealership and is due for Export in Nov, it maybe hired back at Harvest with a student starting in July Steve has had a busy week in the workshop firstly fitting track eradicators to the Rapid for this years drilling season Next he set about removing the Biodrill from the Horsch Tiger to leave a 6 metre rough cultivator to cope with trash and heavier ground, this will act towards the move over to CTF this Autumn, its a steady transition period with a year at 6 metres before the full 12metre shallow cultivations can begin, 6 metres will still be used in certain conditions, and crops will be drilled this Autumn at 8 metres so things are beginning to make the move but it takes time to improve the soil structure before we can rely on 3 inch passes or Direct Drilling, its all coming together slowly with the improvement of Organic Matter (compost & chicken litter) and cover crops. The Tiger will be another weapon in our cultivation box, something Oakley has suffered in the past is not enough options when it came to cultivations.

To be honest it was between Challengers and a Quadtrac, a number of boxes had to be ticked, tracks was a must for compaction reasons, we could of got around this issue by duelling a wheeling tractor but then getting around lanes would be a problem, we need something with more horsepower to cope with 12m cultivations and drilling, we have been impressed with the MT765D and the backup service from Drews of Dinton so have decided to keep the same make, a Quadtrac would be nice, i like the way it flows on headland turns but it is massive, therefore we are looking at 2 600hp Challengers to replace the 765D, with further expansion this Autumn with more contract farming agreements one will be constantly drilling and the other floating between cultivations and chaser bin duties, we also decided a Quadtrac wasn't right for the bed-tiller either

Spud planting has finally finished! The team are in a well deserved 2 day break from whats seemed a lifetime of a planting season. Attention now turns to irrigation, laying of pipes and getting reels working, a yard tidy up with empty seed boxes dumped everywhere, wash and grease all the planting kit and put away, plans are taking shape for Open Farm Sunday and thoughts are already turning to harvest. Changes have already started with CTF, the 4m Vaderstad Topdown and 5m Carrier have been sold leaving us with the 6m Horsch Tiger, we plan to keep this as it fits the system and take the drill off the back, this can then be used for primary cultivations incase the new Carrier and Topdown aren't here in time. We also plan to fit a seeder to the 6m Shakerator for drilling rape aiming to improve establishment further, this will probably be for one year as when the 12m arrives we will look at direct drilling. The purchase of the two new Challengers is also underway!

Great comments chaps, ideally looking for two tractors and bales such as the Krone high density baler and a chaser to fit CTF as the bale comes out the ledge a bar will knock it accross to the side allowing the tractor on the chaser to stay on the same CTF line and pick the bale up from the side. Then once on the concrete pads which are no more than 4/5 miles from any point they can be hauled away at lesuire, im more concerned about the rapid field clearance to get Rape in on time

Ol thats made me chuckle!

In other news our partners Cadbury Park Farm/Barrow Agri has fallen through and pulled out of the shared farming agreement along with the services they provided, leaving a nasty taste in the mouth. Oakley will continue with the shared block of 500 acres on our own for this year as it is completely cropped with spring beans and re address the logistics of this area later in the year. Bigger problems leave us with no baling contractor or spreading services, therefore we are looking for a contractor to take on this important role for the estate and our clients, the outfit must be reliable, efficient, driven to achieve the results, starting as soon as this years harvest with the baling of all wheat straw, balers must keep up with two Lexion 12metre headers, then clearing the bales with speed is a must, preferably with a chaser to selected concrete pads around the estate, the importance of this is high due to the critical timing of drilling rape, more than likely the Challenger will be chasing bale handlers out the field. Must be adaptable to baling and collecting bales using CTF as from 2015. The other gap is a spreading service, compost and chicken litter is spread in spring and autumn and must use GPS RTK accuracy. If anyone is interested in this opportunity to work with Oakley get in touch to build Bridges between model dioramas.

Mid May update, spud planting has been slow progress to say the least with irritating heavy showers getting in the way, a break in the weather this weekend will help the team to make some headway, we have two fields left at Atherstone totalling 32 acres then over to the final block of 52 acres at Knott Oak, with a dry week we would finish. All fertiliser has now been applied at variable rate and Phil is now bashing on with the critical T2 sprays on the wheat, this will be complete by sunday evening all being well.

Bit out of my depth here but from what i gather, a normal printer prints on white paper, when its asked to print something white it simply leaves it blank allowing the paper to bring out the white colour, to print white on clear i believe you have to have a special printer, possibly laser??? Pete would tell you exactly

Running 2 Lexion's, 770 & 780 both tt, pete hardy did the decals for me

Had the transfers put on the new Lexion 780 today, ready to rock and roll now!

Thanks chap, very kind

Wet day here at Oakley, the planting total is currently at 135 acres with 233 left to go. It was due to be higher than that with more acerage at Knott Oak dairy, and 75 acres at Sparkford which we have turned down, and let the dairy have the fields we didnt want back, the market is dead on its heels at the moment so we took the decision to sell on the seed rather than put it in the ground leaving us with a more comfortable acreage. It doesnt leave much inspiration for investment in the spud job at the mo, looking at trying to fit CTF into it and more efficient planting and harvesting techniques.

Your right, it is border line whether its worth growing or not, especially here in South West England due to the closing of the Kidderminster factory, over in the East its probably more viable with less milage to the factories, similar to the spud job the transport kills it. Another thing that would make Oakley nervous is the harvesting conditions, wet and wrecking fields & soil structure, but i believe it can be controlled trafficked on a 6 metre system which would improve things and we would introduce winter ploughing to control weeds acting as a break crop, personally Oakley's future is in the Combinable contract farming area

Its a fantastic piece of kit, credit to valley models

Beet is being looked into Ol on a CTF system but not on the Home Farms land

Day 3 of planting maincrop, variety is Sylvana, block of land is Atherstone, current field is Upper Gothards. Steve bedtilling, Maurice Destoning, Mark planting & Joe running seed, Phil is now applying T1 sprays to the wheat, the yard is a bit of a ghost town with everyone out in field. All going well so far....

Here we are Paul, hopefully the pattern will show up

Thanks Ol, and i will sort out a close up pic tomorrow for you Paul

I have used card Paul, printed on the computer using grey chequered plate effect edged with yellow, looks quite effective

The 40 acres of Charlotte were planted last week at Hinton, didnt have as much rain as expected and finished Thursday night. The Weighbridge is now up and running and the grain lab has been moved, work is on hold with the solar panels as we are waiting for the base stems from Germany

We didnt start today after all, with all the rain we had this morning but they give a dry weekend so maybe next week

The basics are another Dave Towse special, i added decals, front lights, warning signs & all the pipework

Ok the team are ready for planting season, first up Steve calibrating the Mocap applicators on the Bedtiller Next is Maurice greasing up the Destoner ready for action Seed is ready for the field Last up is our potato man Mark, with his planter and front tank on complete with pipes Lets hope for a hassle free season, we get all work out the way so to concentrate on getting planting right, it is the most important crop on the farm on which the whole farms crop rotation is based, not only that but cold stores need to be filled and contracts met, you could say we depend on this. Phil will continue spreading fert on spud ground and then sit on the sprayer until second wheat dressings are required