smithy Posted April 7, 2015 Share Posted April 7, 2015 Is that feed wheat Alex? that's low all the same. Feed wheat down here in Suffolk end of march on the spot market was £113 tonne 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Oakley Farms Posted April 15, 2015 Author Share Posted April 15, 2015 Ok time for an update guys. Since the last post a lot has happened and its time to keep you all up to speed. The Valtra we demoed has now gone back as i hear it has been sold, our verdict... Quiet and comfortable to drive, power seems there but what we where doing with it it was far too light on the back end and found it scrabbling with the 7 meter TopDown, perhaps with some wheel weights it would improve matters, it handled the flat lift better the next day prepping spud ground on what we cultivated the day before, some soil to grip into, so we will be sticking to the mighty 600hp challengers, they seem to hunker down and grip, putting their power down comfortably handling the big kit. Potato planting is well under way now at Selvinge Lane. 8 days in and its going well with 97 acres planted, 93 of that is Shepody for McCain Foods, roughly 30% of our area is down to processing which im pleased about, whats more pleasing is the contracts we have secured with people who actually want spuds! Chase Vodka, growing King Edward and Lady Claire for transport to Hereford, the first of these went in the ground today under the watchful eye of Harry Chase and agronomists. We will be growing a small area of Jelly and Sylvana for open market, the first year ever nothing is under contracts with Branston or Greenvale. Wise decision? Time will tell. All seems to be ticking along nicely apart from the annoying troubles with the amistar pump which happens every year, new planter is doing the business and with a settled forecast im happy! I do love this time of year, everything coming to life, hedges greening up, rape coming into flower, everything seems to run like clockwork, lucky to have such a great planting team who are self contained. This is the current view opposite the main yard, looking at the rape in The Meads 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
B O R Posted April 16, 2015 Share Posted April 16, 2015 lovely pics Alex, I love the planting time 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Light Land Posted April 16, 2015 Share Posted April 16, 2015 The apple wasn't really compared with an apple hey Alex? How many ha's will a de stoner handle each day? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Oakley Farms Posted April 16, 2015 Author Share Posted April 16, 2015 (edited) Over here depending on soil conditions and length of runs we average 5 ha a day, but if you have short runs and headlands with a lot of turning your down to 2.5 ha, talking of headlands i can remember back 10 years ago when we didn't bother planting headlands, poor yields and messing about with all the turning, then in 2008 when we moved to a 32 meter boom on our sprayer we couldn't afford to leave that amount of space unplanted so a 7 row headland it was. We are currently looking at ways to cut our fixed costs, perhaps a tillerstar but im not a fan of cutting corners, you loose attention to detail and enviably quality Edited April 16, 2015 by Oakley Farms Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
B O R Posted April 16, 2015 Share Posted April 16, 2015 (edited) A destoner such as the GRIMME CW150 pictured above with the optional top scrubbing web would destone around 12-15 acres a day depending on soil conditions Edited April 16, 2015 by B O R 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Oakley Farms Posted April 16, 2015 Author Share Posted April 16, 2015 lovely pics Alex, I love the planting time Thank you Brian, i agree with you, the smell of that fresh soil being sifted and the straight as an arrow ridges in spring sunshine, poetry! It is one of my favourite times of the year, i love working with potatoes and enjoy every aspect of it from planting, harvesting, grading and storage and it breaks my heart the current state of the industry. I was talking to Ross from Branston just this morning and the outlook is bleak, this week the first french imports have rolled in so it seems if your still sat on spuds now you won't get a look in, soon the cornish crop will start and then Pembroke. Time to switch stores off i think and send them for stockfeed at £20/t rather than sending them to the Midlands for £30/t plus transport costs. Its enough to make you cry Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Light Land Posted April 17, 2015 Share Posted April 17, 2015 Interesting Alex. Been a good few years since I destoned with a cs150, but we were using it to take spuds out of the soil from the year before to plant carrots again not to grind up the soil or remove stones. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Oakley Farms Posted April 17, 2015 Author Share Posted April 17, 2015 Well i never thought id see the day and may end up eating my words but in a bid to help blackgrass and helping ease our nieghbours workload the first time in 20 years see's Oakley try inversion cultivation. Prepping ground ahead of Maize for AD is tomorrows agenda for Chris under Juilians guidance, 30 acres left to Plough at Wigborough after Stewart Elliott ploughed over 70 for us today. Plough is kindly borrowed from Orchard Farm 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tractorboy Posted April 18, 2015 Share Posted April 18, 2015 Blackgrass is going to be a big problem id say Alex , out my way a few have had to spray off the whole field to try & kill it , Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paul Palmer Posted April 18, 2015 Share Posted April 18, 2015 out of interest Alex,how would you establish Maize,without the plough? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Oakley Farms Posted April 18, 2015 Author Share Posted April 18, 2015 (edited) Blackgrass is going to be a big problem id say Alex , out my way a few have had to spray off the whole field to try & kill it , It is a nation wide problem in which i am beginning to understand the problems, down here we are lucky with our mainly light soils, we do have one heavy block at speaks which is a promlematic blackgrass hotspot, we are finding combining the cultural merhods of 3 stale seedbeds really helps along with chemical control which we cannot rely on and its not good to solely rely on because of resistancy but i believe opening up our rotations wider will really help keep wraps on it, allowing more stale seedbeds, more time for gylphosate and a certain percentage of inversion as a trial. Widening to include spring cropping, grass leys, and maize which fits the energy crop requirements needed by Juilian and ticks the three crop rule it has many benefits all round. Edited April 18, 2015 by Oakley Farms Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Oakley Farms Posted April 18, 2015 Author Share Posted April 18, 2015 out of interest Alex,how would you establish Maize,without the plough? Very easy, Subsoil, Topdown, Carrier and Drill, where i work we use a 50:50 split of ploughing and sumo trio, the light ground with one pass on the sumo and you can drill into it. I think personally its swings and roundabouts and all depends on your soil types. I mean im not a fan of ploughs because the moment you put one in the ground your are upping your establishment costs greatly trying to work it down, powerharrows are slow and expensive, its not weatherproof and undoes soil structure, but it is really the only way to get a true fine seedbed for certain crops, maize, fodderbeet etc and it does wonders for blackgrass. Me personally id Topdown the ground the autumn before and add a covercrop to prevent nutrient loss and allowing roots not iron to do the work, top and subsoil in the spring as maize cannot stand compaction, wizz over the top with the big carrier and drill, job done but i can't do that everywhere so with more energy crops to be grown we will also use a 50:50 approach, using this year very much as a trial year and see how the energy crops perform under different techniques. One i am very keen on is trying the Sumo DTS which has been used to establish maize the no till approach. Straight into stubble, it has a subsoil leg followed by a strip till arrangment coulter, and thats it, results last year had no reduction or improvement in yield so it matched the plough but with one huge benefit, it reduces your establishment costs by more than 50% a no brainer. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paul Palmer Posted April 18, 2015 Share Posted April 18, 2015 got you,down here its plough,subsoil and 2 passes with the power harrow then drill,so with your option of the sumo DTS,i can see the savings Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Oakley Farms Posted April 18, 2015 Author Share Posted April 18, 2015 (edited) I think the plough/power harrow is def the more popular option, i guess most farmers are dairy putting in maize for cattle feed and the plough and power harrow suits their tractor and field sizes. I think its the AD boys that will think outside the box, with perhaps 2000+ acres and bigger fields, bigger kit is justifiable, which opens up the doors for new ideas and tackle which i am currently finding very interesting, i mean i wouldn't want to plough and harrow all that lot, bore me to tears! Edited April 18, 2015 by Oakley Farms 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Oakley Farms Posted April 20, 2015 Author Share Posted April 20, 2015 Monday 20th April Holiday week this week for me so young James is in the hot seat taking over day to day runnings of the farm, keeping in contact with Julian and Stewart regarding maize drilling is of priority for him as well as keeping spud planting going and carrying out any spraying that comes in with T1's around the corner and mid flower on the rape along with top dress on the wheat if recommendations come in from the agronomists on any forward crops. Mean while popping into the yard yesterday catching up with Chris greasing over the Carrier before hitting the first block of maize ground, probably hit it twice, the two new liquid fert tanks have now gone in next to the biobed, and a amighty delivery of fertiliser which i can only assume is a delivery mistake and is in fact Orchard Farms for the maize?? With nowhere to put it it found its way into the grading shed and machinery shed for now! Also had a look at how the spring beans are doing, looking well and no sign of beetles just yet 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tractorboyjules1977 Posted April 20, 2015 Share Posted April 20, 2015 they liquid fert tanks look cracking ! what a sight , all that fert ,wont be taking up too much room for long hopefully !!!! Alright for some on holiday ! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Niels Posted April 20, 2015 Share Posted April 20, 2015 Agreed those fertiliser tanks look good. Did you use an old oil filter for that? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Oakley Farms Posted April 20, 2015 Author Share Posted April 20, 2015 Agreed those fertiliser tanks look good. Did you use an old oil filter for that? Thanks Niels, not filters no, when i first visited Julians display first his diesel tanks caught my eye and i quizzed him over them which gave me the idea of what to use for the tanks, two shampoo bottles with the tops cut off, lids added, valves added and yara decal as well as sprayed up in fiber glass colours, that was the hardest part really, finding a colour match Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Barry Posted April 20, 2015 Share Posted April 20, 2015 Silky smooth hair now Alex after getting through all that!!! 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Oakley Farms Posted April 20, 2015 Author Share Posted April 20, 2015 :D a little too late for that mate, its all falling out, must be putting up with you lot on here or too much much time spent on here! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Niels Posted April 21, 2015 Share Posted April 21, 2015 Thanks Niels, not filters no, when i first visited Julians display first his diesel tanks caught my eye and i quizzed him over them which gave me the idea of what to use for the tanks, two shampoo bottles with the tops cut off, lids added, valves added and yara decal as well as sprayed up in fiber glass colours, that was the hardest part really, finding a colour match Ah good idea! They do look the business. You got the paint spot on I reckon. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Oakley Farms Posted April 21, 2015 Author Share Posted April 21, 2015 Today we drilled 100 acres of Maize with our Horsch at Wigborough Manor, every other coulter blocked, 18 rows @ 66.7cm spacings. Julian came out to help with set up and make sure everything was ok being his crop for the AD plant. Went into Quite good seedbeds but as this is a trial we are somewhat blind as to the effect of row spacings on yeild, the variety prefers a narrower spacing so we shall see. Also today Pascal and Arrieanne from Branston have been sorting trial varieties out in one of our cold stores, planting these is going to send Mark potty, leave until last i think so not to hamper progress! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tractorboy Posted April 21, 2015 Share Posted April 21, 2015 Nothing wrong with harrowing ha ha! I spent years having todo it as a lad, now you d need a nice big set for your amount of land you have Alex Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Oakley Farms Posted April 21, 2015 Author Share Posted April 21, 2015 In hand Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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