Tim's work

[turbo22]

I bet any fellow farmers in the area had a puzzled look when they saw that combination driving around! Dinky little drill you have there, what kind of spacing do these beetroot's have then?

  They would be more concerned about the sprayer. The hole farm is organic. As for the drill, we used to borrow one from the local HRI. They closed down so we looked at going down the root of a 3 bed system and 12 row drill as the acerage had been on the up each year. Unfortunately at about the same time the contract more than halved so we ended up with this. Can't remember the spacing at the mo.

[MJB1]

i worked on a fram that grew beetroot on contract to cow & gate, the baby food people , very exacting standards with specific quantity & brands of fertilizer & sprays to be used. are your beets contract grown or harvested & sold wholesale ?

[turbo22]

i worked on a fram that grew beetroot on contract to cow & gate, the baby food people , very exacting standards with specific quantity & brands of fertilizer & sprays to be used. are your beets contract grown or harvested & sold wholesale ?

  The bulk of the beet is grown for greens of soham, some also go's wholesale and some gets hand picked and sold either at farmers markets or through our box scheme. The only standards we have to work to are from the soil association. And there seems plenty of them.

  Tris, we plant them in 14" rows with each head having a double coulter at about 1 1/2" to 2" spacing. The outside 2 heads are set slightly thicker to hold them back  as they get more air and grow quicker.

[Light Land]

Nice pictures,real farming.

[Deere-est]

That's interesting, especially about the outer two rows growing quicker and therefore given less space. 

[masseyjack590]

do you work for woodlands organic it makes sense now i have been for a farm walk there a few years ago it's a nice farm

[turbo22]

do you work for woodlands organic it makes sense now i have been for a farm walk there a few years ago it's a nice farm

  Yep that's us. Was it one of our open days or an aranged visit?

The farm has aweb site for anyone interested,  http://www.woodlandsfarm.co.uk/index.php . There's a hole host of stuff on there, not all of it up to date. If you click on community then gallery it will take you to a hole load of pictures of the farm and what we do.

[masseyjack590]

i think it was with fwag a few years ago we have 150ac of organic cereals and some organic cows and the rest is conventional

[turbo22]

    Well not to much going on at the moment, mainly trying to keep the crops as weed free as possible. Not that we've been able to do much this last week as its been too wet. We are currently running about 300 Lincoln red cattle, a small flock of Lincoln long wool sheep, chickens(layers and meat) turkeys(meat) and a couple of pigs. In total we run about 3000 acres. Sorted some photos of some of the other tractors on the farm.

[Eurodeere]

More great pictures, keep them comining, especially some of the 50 series tractors in the field at work.

[Deere-est]

You must have loads of tractors at your place. I take it the estate has been Deere through and through for years now?

[turbo22]

You must have loads of tractors at your place. I take it the estate has been Deere through and through for years now?

  15 I recon plus 2 loaders all JD bar one ford 8240 an Iseku ? and the two cats. The 2wd 2850 has been here since new the other two only arrived about three years ago. When i started here ten years ago there was a mix of CASE IH, DB, DEUTZ, FORD, JD and MF.

More great pictures, keep them comining, especially some of the 50 series tractors in the field at work.

  Thanks. The old timers don't do allot now. Mainly potter about in what we call the market garden were most of the produce for the box scheme is grown.

[turbo22]

    We finally got round to some bales this week. We want about 1700 in total.

Contractors 6620 se and nova cat 305 mower

Trusty old hay bob lives on

  6930 and 678 wrapper baler

Wrapper in action

Control box and camera

[Deere-est]

Who makes the Deere baler, Tim is it Vicon?

With 1700 bales to make would clamping not be cheaper given the price of plastic, especially that posh stuff?! 

[turbo22]

Always assumed it was made by Deere, so ill have to have a look in morning. We don't have the facilities to clamp it unfortunately. Also all we have lay ed out on is the baler (although the rake could do with an upgrade). If we were to clamp it we would need a chopper of some sorts and silage sides for trailers plus extra labour. This way only involves 2 of our own staff at any one time. I do think clamping would work well with our system though. With having 1500 acres to combine the opportunity for whole crop is also there.

[Deere-est]

It would be interesting to know the cost of plastic and net for that much but like you say, lighter on labour and less capital outlay doing it the way you guys do. I think you said before didn't you, no contractors? Everything is done in house is that right?

[turbo22]

  Used to have contractor to do the lot. But that still involved up to three of us loading in the field and carting in as they only had a static wrapper in the yard. After 2/3 years of poor service from them it was decided to get our own baler and mower, though the mower was put on hold. We now use a different contractor to do the mowing who also brings in the dung and spreads it. The next problem is that they are over loaded with mowing and are struggling to get to us so we shall have to wait and see.

[jordantaylor]

just love the john deere baler and tractor

[masseyjack590]

cant be too many farms making silage near you once you get on the wolds you find more

[turbo22]

It would be interesting to know the cost of plastic and net for that much

So far I have done about 1500 bales and used about 5 rolls of net and about 100 rolls of plastic. That comes to about £6000.

cant be too many farms making silage near you once you get on the wolds you find more

Nope not to many as you say. We sell a fair bit of our clover lays to a couple of local beef yards which they get baled themselves.