Oakley Farms

He is a good chap Jon, fights for whats right

Cheers Ol, well Jack Pollard from Barrow Brook Farm has a trailed Amazone sprayer that helps out, Jack and I are building his model farm as we speak, the idea is to work together, he will help with spraying, bale all the straw as he buys it and sells it on, spread chicken litter & compost and i help him by growing 80 acres of potatoes on his ground, planting, harvesting, grading, storing & marketing them, we have a joint contract farming partnership of 500 acres at North Cadbury together so you will be seeing more of Jack on here in time. My Plan is to keep acreages the same on the home farm and expand on the contract farming side of things, we have the kit & tackle to cope and that way there is little investment for 50% of the returns, half for the land owner and half for Oakley Farms, therefore its in our interest to make a good job of other peoples farms

Extremely wealthy! The farm has been built up over 25 years, and with this size of output tax can be a problem! Extra income comes from two business parks & a sawmills too, the new venture & separate business into contract farming (oakley farms agri business) will also bring extra income, offering a complete stubble to stubble service with drying, storage & marketing available in partnership with Frontier

In-between the storms the weather isn't too bad, on the levels its a different story, Oakley is situated in South Somerset higher up than the levels, we are right on the catchment area to one of the rivers that feeds the levels so run off and soil erosion are important to us, with the wind some of the land has pitched off, the majority of the home farm soil is light silty loams but some of the contract farmed areas are very heavy & wet, they will be left alone for some time yet. There are no external investors in the company, there is simply a wealthy land owner who inherited the land and has bought surrounding farms as years went on and agricultural labour changed, he has very little input in the farm as he is an MP & Lord so has other priorities. It is left to the farm & estate manager to run things and make decisions, having monthly progress meetings with the land owner, the farm finance situation is like any, making a profit by doing things right with attention to detail and efficiency saving money in the long run. It strongly believes in investing money to reap the rewards later on.

We have a Grimme GL32B prototype version, i would like to move over to a new belt planter at some point, and the spuds go to mainly Greenvales Tern Hill Site with some going to Floods Ferry

Another change that has happened is the Estate has purchased another farm to the north of Somerset near Wincanton, Barrow Brook Farm is around 2000 acres of complete arable land, a farm manager has been found to run this, Jack Pollard from the former Cadbury Park Farm (was sold off) is the man for the job, working closely with Oakley Farms as a team, 80 acres of Oakleys spuds will be grown up there as part of Barrows rotation, in return Jack will Bale all straw for us, spread poultry litter & compost and is also the other half of the joint contract farming partnership at North Cadbury

We have Phil's new JD 6210r, a Richard Larrington root king trailer, and combine number 2 is due as well, Lexion 770, all ordered last year, sign writing is also an addition happening soon. The biggest piece will be the new Tong Peal Caretaker 1800 grading line where modifications will be made to the grading shed to accommodate this piece of kit, never a dull moment at Oakley Farms!

So we are into February now and we feel we really should be out doing something, so Phil has been out today putting Nitrogen on the Rape but only the dryish ground, he has the mounted spinner on Joes 69 as his new one still hasnt arrived yet, next week we are told! Joe is planning on ventering out with the sprayer tomorrow as the spinning travelled relatively well making little mess. The pack house has finished packing salads now with all Charlotte now sold, spuds are flying out the yard now with a load a day up to Greenvale and Maurice on hauling 3 loads of 16 boxes up to Branston a day, the verdict is positive on the curtainsider and got the thumbs up from a happy Maurice this morning saving him sheeting down the flatbed in the rain! Mark is working on his spud planter in the workshop along with Steve still working on the drill. Cash flow is still very tight at the moment and machinery heading into the yard in the next coming weeks have all been pre orders awaiting delivery. We hope this situation is relieved before planting and diesel starts to be burnt!

No they are pretty new Jamie, special builds for nursery & veg growers, they are on their website now

Oakley Farms has purchased a 16 ton curtainsided trailer for the transport of boxed potatoes to Branston, to cut haulage costs, it will also come in handy to haul seed & fertiliser around however its first job is to collect 10 pallets of milk powder and deliver to the flooded farms on the Somerset Levels, doing our bit!

You hit the nail on the head there, it is just too heavy, big and clumsy, talking model wise it doesnt tick all the boxes for me, the booms are flimsy and not detailed and the steering is loose, i have always liked Bateman's, popular sprayer in the UK, although i was very impressed with the new Knight i saw at Lamma

Thanks for the comments Niels, well i use a mixture of sources to get information, some is knowledge from the farms i have worked on after being a tractor & sprayer operator on a 1000 acre arable farm, some i get from magazines like farmers weekly, arable farmer etc, the inspiration for the farm was taken from several large farms, solely based on Dillington Farms & Estate, the contract farming side of things and controlled traffic farming has come from PX Farms & Flawborough Farms, both pioneers in agriculture in my opinion, finally events and things i take inspiration from where i work now, Frogmary Green Farm, check out the website, www.frogmarygreenfarm.co.uk Spraying is done by the Challenger Rogator, and when we are busy a contractor helps out with a Amazon trailed, a Bateman RB35 is on order to replace the Rogator hopefully this time next year

Yes it is the base from the Uh Vaderstad drill, 8 metres

This week Oakley Farms is playing host to the Potato Council and Syngenta SW Potato Day for South West Growers, where growers from Cornwall right up to Hereford come for Meetings, Workshops & Demonstrations on a range of subjects from soil to minimising bruising. Some local machinery dealers are exhibiting some kit in the yard Smart Agricultural Services are using our Grimme Harvester, Destoner, Front Topper & have brought in a tractor on row crops to show Root Systems are showing off our Grimme Bedtiller, Standern 3 bed Topper & Horstine Front Tank Compass Tractors have brought over a Demo 939 in black

Last week Steve spent some time on the drill ahead of 700 acres of spring besns to drill in March, first washing it off in the wash bay Then backing it in the workshop to repair a few punctures, and the marker arm bushes have worn and are sloppy so need some attention Then a grease up and she is ready if it ever stops raining. February is now here and I'm itching to put some early Nitrogen on the rape but its still too wet under foot, i can see us heading out with the mounted spinner before we attempt to pull 6 ton around in the trailed

No i didn't its another one of Three Oaks Farm Models creations after putting in an order

Yesterday Mark finished the week off by going to Hamblys to collect and bring back the new Albutt man crate

The Oakley wash bay opens for business! Another little addition is a small lean too shed off the extension to house the pressure washer, we thought this would be an ideal area to wash kit down being right next to the biobed allowing dirty contaminated water to be filtered through it On a sadder note the pack house is not doing well, we have closed off two of the lines letting staff go and have blocked off two of the loading bays now running 4 rather than 6, seems to be costing more than making money

Extension has now been finished which wraps up all the major building work on the farm for now, all sheds are now as i want them Two new irrigators have been purchased for potatoes, found a nice parking space beside the new extension

Yes ol the majority of the winter wheat goes for milling but we segregate the poorer quality wheat which goes for feed, this way we can pass the premium to the land owner for high grade

This week i have fitted exterior vents on the coldstores to finish the sheds off The new extension is coming along nicely however im now waiting for interior paint which is due next week so this is on hold for the time being Maurice has been hauling wheat out today using Joes 69 as his is still poorly in the workshop, 3 loads a day contracted with Lloyds of Langport feed mill all this week, that will keep him out of mischief

Tony House who we farm for at Ashill gave me a surprise Christmas present to help fight compaction. Very amusing Tony!

Thats great Dan, made me laugh about forgetting who was working for you

A few small things that have happened lately is between Christmas and New Year whilst the yard was quiet i had a little play on the digger and ripped out a piece of hedge between the yard and a 200 acre block right next the farm which we call Oakley anyway, should make things a bit easier than running around the lanes Also a mistake we made in previous years was with GPS, we mixed and matched systems, John Deeres had Starfire, sprayer and Challenger had Topcon, Lexion had Claas' own system and Tims Newholland had Teejet which caused us nothing but problems as nothing would work together or follow the same AB lines, it has proved very expensive and has really got us nowhere so i came up with the solution to streamline everything to one system, Trimble. We have taken off all the Starfire systems from the two JD 68's and the 69 leaving them with nothing as they don't really need GPS, and fitted Trimble to the Challenger and the new Lexion 780, Phil's new tractor will come with trimble on it since he will use it for fert spreading, and rolling. Now everything will work together, the first step towards Controlled Traffic Farming at Oakley

As some of you may have just picked out from the last pic, Maurice has had a slight accident with his tractor, he was up Branston delivering spuds on the flatbed when a lorry backed into the front of his 68 and ripped the front linkage right off. We have got it back in the workshop whilst waiting to hear from their insurance company, not a good start to the year!