Oakley Farms

Brilliant detail James, well done

Important update coming in 5 days

Liking the new wagon mate, looking forward to seeing the outfit when up and running with mobile liquid

Not quite all quiet yet! Managed to get it all in now, all finished today just got the pre em to get on and we are done for winter!

Friday 17th November Today we finally start the final push of the 2017 drilling campaign after patiently waiting for the ground to dry. 508 acres of heavy soil at Speaks and Osbornes was checked yesterday and the majority will go, there are a few wet areas as you’d expect so we have the fire engine drill on the go to cope with the areas that the 12 metre Sprinter won’t. It’s going to be a bit slower with tougher ground conditions, higher seed rates and shorter working days but hope to get it all done in around 4 days. Will the gamble pay off?

1.11.17 Welcome to the Nov update from Oakley. Since the last post we have played a patient waiting game for the ground to dry out, eventually it was go with the carrier on the last block of land to flush black grass through, this is now going o be sprayed off tomorrow with it greening up now and a spiders web underneath the surface so it was worth doing. Hope to drill next week but keeping one eye on the weather as this needs to go in now before anymore rain. We have been catching up on herbicides on rape, fungicide to go on next which is late! A couple of the chaps have been on with Orchard contractors up the road helping them to finish maize with tractors and trailers, only happy to help when things are quieter. In the last week we have also direct drilled oats into maize stubbles, slightly rough but it’s just to hold soil together. We normally buy the oats from Chris Reyland but he didn’t harvest any this year so we turned to Chapmans, loading the drill with the side auger in field with one of our grain trailers, the first day caused trouble with the amount of straw blocking Coulter’s so collected the rest by lorry and ran through the cleaner plant before re loading in grain trailers. I was hoping the points on the drill were going to last the rest of this season but the direct drilling has finished them so today’s job is to change 12 metres worth ready for the last 500 acres of wheat!

Good to hear you’re getting through the workload now, another fine week forecast should help you finish everything off. Thumbs up

October Update Well since the last time of posting a lot of progress has been made across farm, hybrid rye was successfully drilled and rolled, potato and maize harvesting finished around the same time about two weeks ago. This year the bunker Maus has been great, many farmers locally have been in trouble with mud on road with the police seemingly having a crack down, it takes a little organising but we are all finished before the weather broke and with no mess. It’s now available for hire along with the krone and ejectors if anyone is struggling to finish off. Winter wheat drilling has gone well, drilling 75% of it into good conditions and pre ems on. The weather has now broken with over an inch of rain on Thursday and another storm to batter us here today, we have been holding our nerve drilling a block of 500 acres on some heavy ground, this was to get several flushes of blackgrass through. With 2 out the way it would be nice for one more light cultivation and glyphosate before we go in with the drill but with the weather now I’m not sure. We do have a back up plan to use the 6 metre power harrow combi but I’m not that desperate yet! We also have quite an acreage of oats to direct drill into maize stubbles to stop erosion over winter, two more weeks of dry weather would be ideal to get wrapped up

It's a good idea which I like the principle of, I decided with a Maus because of some of the access points to get trucks to, some blocks of land don't have any tracks or hard standings so we resort to loading over the hedge whilst the trucks stay on the road so the reach of the Maus is essential.

You've got it...much prefer the yellow and black colour scheme so won't be on any hurry to purchase a Fendt crawler, although would like to try one to see how the vario box does!

In other news next job is to get a handler over to the Maus as we find it very important to clear up after ourselves before moving to the next place so where the Maus is positioned inevitably some maize ends up on the floor so we always clear this up. We have now taken delivery of our new Challenger 875E replacing the old 865C, this will run alongside our existing 875E just a different shape, just need chance to sit on it now!

18.9.17 Most of the odd jobs cleared up now including the cover crops, just a few slug pellets left to spread on 2 blocks of rape, slugs horrendous this year down here, due to things being a bit stretched at the minute just debating to do this at night with the tractor and spinner rather than the gator to speed things up. Today we started the maize harvesting campaign, a bit late in the day for a start after getting the kit out the shed and over to Yeabridge for 40 acres, time the maus was in place etc. So this is the first year for us harvesting our own maize and using 6 metre CTF, we have had to purchase a new header, 7.5 metre, 10 row, will be used at 6 metre with overlap so cuts 9 rows at 8 row centres. This is working but we have gone wrong on headlands by drilling up close to the hedge, and not allowing for the overlap thus offsetting the first set of wheelings. With a narrower header as it came with a 9 metre 12 row it's a little more tricky to open up fields-we don't have a hitch on the back of the Krone so everything gets blown over the top as we can't fit alongside the header, today this has been hard with the big tri axle ejectors so we have made up one of the root crops for silage to help this. Still trying to dig potatoes and carry on with cultivations so staff are thin with one one harvester, three on trailers, one in the grading shed on the forklift, one on the Krone, 2 on ejector trailers, one on the maus, and 2 lorry drivers and the final one on primary cultivations, leaving at the moment nobody free to spread the last of the slug pellets, round up off the rye ground, start drilling, run seed and fertiliser and rolling....nightshift anyone?

Harvest Log Day 27 Well folks that's combinable crop harvest for 2017 all done! It was a 1:30am finish last night and some of it done in the drizzle but it's in the bag! 3am and the drill rolls back into the yard after managing to finish the OSR into a somewhat sticky Yarlington, so all in all it's good to have the pressure off slightly now and settle down into the next harvests with maincrop potatoes starting Monday and maize starting to the middle of next week. I had conformation yesterday that both the new maize header and the Challenger are arriving next week just in time. The next plan is to tie up some loose jobs including some secondary cultivation work on hybrid rye grounds so this can have some round up, finish rolling and pre em the rape and apply slug pellets. Once that is complete we have a few cover crops left to drill which is now late and won't establish fully but I don't want the soil bare over winter, some of this will be oats so that's fine and then primary and secondary cultivations ahead of drilling wheat towards the end of the month.

Do love that Claas 85, lovely classic

The 775E isn't big enough for us, just about manages on the Carrier handling secondary cultivations but with only primaries to do at the minute and being a wet season she is taking some pulling at the minute. We haven't got as much drilled as we'd of liked-rained off again yesterday, cracking on late tonight until midnight. Tomorrow looks like our window to clean up the last of these beans, rain coming in Friday, I'd like to get the rape in before then but with 360 acres still to do between now and tomorrow night we will need to keep that drill running 24hours.

Harvest Log Days 24, 25 & 26 Well since the last update its been stop and go regarding harvest and drilling. With only one full day it's very much catch what you can when you can, however we managed to finish Speaks and Osbornes. Now we have 2 blocks of our own to finish at Bay Hill and Moolham, 270 acres in total and that will be a wrap, everyone is determined to try and get this done in one very long day when it comes. We have 700 acres of OSR left to get in, going to start again tomorrow on this job after a lot of rain the weekend. I'm not too worried about this at the minute as our best yields come from crops drilled 5-10th September so that's the target, tomorrow being the 5th. We have a baby challenger on hire whilst we still wait for our new one, he isn't quite bit enough for the job on the 12 m Carrier but we have to make do. A few other jobs have been going on during the wet spell, spreading slug pellets and servicing the Krone up ready for maize around the corner. Tomorrow Orchard contractors are in for a few days to spread sewage cake on Speaks and Osbornes, Mark is going to load with the slew and Chris is going to incorporate straight away with the Carrier, going to change over to the 938 though for a faster forward speed.

Good update mate, glad to hear harvest is all done for you!

Harvest Log Day 22 & 23 Spring beans are going well in this glorious bank holiday weekend weather. Over the last two days we have been working close to base clearing Boxstone block and today up behind the farm. We have had to manage today with one grain trailer and the chaser bin as the rest of the guys have been finishing off the last loads of Shepody potatoes before joining us on trailers. Tomorrow we are off to Speaks with the truck drivers back off bank holiday we can travel further from base. Bit of a workload to catch up on now with OSR needing rolling in, drilling still ongoing, hedge trimming, and now have some ground clear for this next years wheat so primary cultivations can commence, haven't got a tractor for this as we are awaiting another Challenger so one is coming tomorrow to help us out.

Harvest Log Day 21 Winter Barley ✅ Oilseed Rape ✅ Winter Wheat ✅ Spring Beans....are go!

Harvest Log Day 19 & 20 Things now ticking along nicely, had another good day at Bondip and finished there yesterday and moved up the road into the last block of wheat at Camelot East, by Saturday fingers crossed wheat will all be in the shed and bring the combines back towards home. Spring beans are pretty much there now so Sunday we'll have ago. A break from digging spuds until Sunday as no loads booked in until Monday, briefly cultivated the areas that got hammered by yesterday's farming and direct drilling cover crop there today. OSR drilling definitely will start tomorrow, a massive chunk to get in this year 2000 odd acres so long hours ahead for Phil.

It's a hefty thing to haul about, steering axle on the cart helps, but it's very long, pulling it behind the rapid lift sets it back even further, double gateways everywhere! However it's all needed for CTF and boy can you cover some ground, 200ha a day.

Harvest Log Day 18 The first real day of chaos today with so much going on. Starting digging Shepody potatoes for McCain down at Horlicks. We have about 5 days of digging but it's very slow with green damp haulm causing issues as normal. We have lost 5 members of the grain gang over to the spud crew for a bit now but managing using 2 of the lorries and the unimog for grain. So got combining again at 2pm and moisture started at 19.5 and rapidly went down to 16, clearing another 160 acres which completes all of the old side of Bondip, very sticky underfoot now though. Looking like it could be a full day today with a nice 50 acre field for starters, we won't finish here but will break the back of it. We are also now on drilling a cover crop mix on ground ahead of next years spring beans, keeps bio diversity over winter and prevents soil erosion, yesterday was direct drilling into rape stubble and today is into wheat stubble. Rolling this in will be a split shift, one of the grain guys pre combining and then one of the spud guys will take over when finished later in the afternoon as they can only dig x3 lorry loads a day/x9 trailers. OSR drilling starts tomorrow.

Thank you fellas, the destoner was a one off build by BOR. Fingers crossed for a dry spell now into September

Ha, the wheels weren't turning on that 724 this morning!