Up to Lincoln to see Nick Ward

Nick with an Excellent Canola crop (Oilseed Rape)

Nick and Barbara run the family farm in Lincolnshire with a continuous cropping program. The crops they grow include Wheat, Beans, Oilseed Rape, Corn & others. They use a modified disc machine to sow all of their crops.

A Vaaderstaad Disc Seeder

The seeder had too much soil throw for what I am looking for in  a zero-till capacity. A major problem that Nick and other farmers in the area face is waterlogging through out the year. During the fifties when the UK was sponsoring agriculture this area of England was drained using tile drains with ceramic piping at about 1 metre deep. This is effective but it needs maintanance

Tile Drainage

The high precipitation causes not only waterlogging problems but also problems at harvest with high moisture content of the grain. Nick has to dry all of his grain. He has room for about 4000 tonnes in the drying sheds and more normal storage. With his driers he can change the temperature of the grain and the levels of moisture. This achieved with blowing normal air through the grain pile or heating the air with gas burners.

A Wooden Floor With Underfloor Ventilation & Perforated Tin Channels

Dried Grain

Nicks crops that he grows were very good and the finished product ready for delivery had the right specification for the end user.

Historic Right of Way

All across UK there are historic right of ways which anyone can walk along so the farmers like Nick have to keep these designated areas tidy and accessible. It is a real pain in the arse. Nick told us that some walkers still walk anywhere over his crops.

A Nice Bean Crop

Worcester - Weddings, Beef & Asparagus

Currdine Farm

We left green Wales to go up to Worcestershire. We caught up with John Ballard at Curradine Farm at Shrawley. They have converted a barn over to a Wedding Venue. The farm is like a lot of English farms in that it is relatively small. The extract from their website  http://www.weddingvenues.com/

"Charming restored barns in beautiful countryside easily accessible from all major towns in the south Midlands. This delightful venue has been imaginatively and artistically restored to the highest possible standards. The L-shaped barns are located on a working farm, close to the church, and centred round a charming, flower-filled Courtyard that is perfect for a drinks reception. The atmosphere is friendly and supportive. The owners go out of their way to make you welcome and their inspiration, vision and style has created a truly exceptional, natural venue. It just gets prettier every day! Licensed for Civil Ceremonies.

With underfloor heating and air conditioning, this venue is ideal for both Summer and Winter weddings."

Wedding Courtyard

John and his partner have added a new section with bridal suite and full changing facitlities for the bridal party.

The Farm Dog

Curradine Farm has roughly 3 weddings per week and keeps them busy. This is an excellent addition to the Angus Stud and asparagus farm. John gave us directions up the road to catch up with Richard Colwell at Dingle Farm, Little Witley. Richard was a 1997 Nuffield Scholar

Richard is a vegetable grower with his brother. They have about 70 acres of asparagus. Richard set up WAG which is the Western Asparagus Growers. WAG has 11 growers with 600 acres of asparagus.

Asparagus Shoots

The asparagus plant is sown as a crown 1ft deep. It is allowed to grow for the first year which builds up the root reserves. The shoots are then harvested during the second season. The asparagus grows fresh shoots each day and grow at approximately 6-8 inches per day.

Richard picks asparagus for two months each year. He has 18 young pickers who work for 8 hours a day for Sunday to Friday. These are mainly from Eastern Europe.

Picked Asparagus

All of the members of the group send the produce each day to a central location and they are sorted by thickness and colour. It is then cut to length and packed.

The Aparagus Eating Dog

Catch-up with Will

We travelled to Haverfordwest Wales to catch up with Will Scale another Nuffield scholar. Will grows a number of crops including winter wheats and other winter cereals with potatoes as a main stay. He sows his crops using no-till methods. He has been utilizing these methods for a while and is seeing the benefits of this system.

A No-Till Crop with Good Emergence

One of the hardest aspects to overcome with no-till is the fact of the sprayed out seedbed and the new crop comes up and does not look as good as a traditionally sown crops. The photo above shows a crop with excellent emergence, but is partly hidden by the stubble.

Will is looking for options to complement his current farming program to allow for more profitability by 2013 when the current Common Agricultural Policy is reviewed. So far all of the farmers we have talked to consider subsidies/grants or whatever the name, find them wrong but are not willing to give them back.

Some Nice Crops Overlooking Haverfordwest.

One of Will's and others farmer's problem weeds is Black Grass. It is resistant to a number chemicals already. The traditional cultivation systems have still got the same problems. A number of chemical options open to us in Australia are not available in the UK. These include Grammoxone, Simmazine and Sprayseed.
There is no longer a double knock option to help control Black Grass and other weeds.

When we left Will In St David we had a Captain Cook around St David's Cathedral. It is the smallest city in UK. (A city in UK must have a Cathedral).

St David's Cathedral (Patron Saint of Wales)

Louvres Made of Slate

Alvis Brothers

We headed off to Bristol to catch up with our first Nuffield Scholar and his family. John & Pauline Alvis and their two sons, Peter and Johnny. They live south of Bristol at a little village called Redhill. They are dairy farmers with a great model of circular integration.

Lye Cross Farmshop

Home of

West Country Farmhouse Cheeses

The company of Alvis Brothers runs a number of other identities which all integrate well. They currently run three dairies in the area with 1 being organic. The milk is all delivered to the cheese factory behind the shop complex and is made into a range of hard cheeses. The bi-product of the cheese making progress is whey which is further separated into protein powder and lactose syrup. This is pumped up to the companies piggery and utilised there. The pigs are sold with some coming into the butcher shop as part of The Farm Shop produce.

Cleaning Manure from Dairy

The manure and waste from the piggery is spread onto the paddocks as is the dairy waste. The cows are housed for six months and for the rest of the year are outdoors on the paddocks grazing ryegrass and clover based pasture. The farmland gets spread with manure every third year.
All of the paddock work including spreading manure, seeding and spraying is carried out by a contract company in which Alvis Bros have a 1/2 share.  The contracting company uses Moore disc seeder.

A Moore Disc Assembly

The Farm Shop is a key component to the Alvis Bros. The hard cheeses that they produce are sold in the shop which goes well  as there is a  large amount of passing traffic. Now that the farm shop also has a butcher shop and fresh produce including veggies, they have customers who travel especially to buy from them.

Alvis Bros supply Sainsbury's with the range of Cheddar's and other cheeses. Currently they sell 3 out of every 4 kilograms of Organic cheese sold in Britain. They make three types of Cheddar; Hard, Mature & Vintage. They also make Red Leicester, Cheshire,Caerphilly and Blue Stilton.

To be able to use the Cheddar name the cheese must be hand turned during the process. It also helps being in the Cheddar region.

Slackness

I have finally gotten around to updating my blog. Nikki and I have been in the UK for 11 days and have seen a fair part of the country. We would have seen more if it was not for the bloody hedges. They tend to keep them in good order as part of the CAP requires them to do so.

We have stayed some of the time with some relatives which was good as I have not seen them for a long time. To settle in to England we had a tour of Kent and went to a manor house.

Just the Dog House

View from Manor House Tower

England

Posted by Nikki
well we are just about to launch out of England early just in case the volcano ash changes direction and heads back to heathrow. We fly out to New York tomorrow to catch up with Jono & Nat which will be lots of fun.
we have toured lots of England and done over 900 miles after our visit to wales we travelled to Worcester and spent the day there with John Ballard - Sue Wheal's brother and then had a look at an asparagus farm which was interesting. then we zipped off to Lincoln where we stayed with Nick & Barbara Ward. balls will write about all the farming stuff.... eventually. We then toured down to see Tony Reynolds on his property just above Bourne.  We stayed with Balls' cousin Ian Monday night and then on Tuesday popped into visit the other Rellies in Newmarket and then headed back home to David & Joans in West Malling.
Balls has been speaking at a no till conference in Edenvale today and I have been doing a bit of touring.
English election tomorrow. should be close

Wales

Thursday 29th April
Posted by Nikki
Set off for Wales in the morning from Bristol. It only took us 3 hours to drive there and we got to the bottom South West corner in a town called Haverfordwest just after lunch time. Had lunch in a pub in the town, tried to find some free wireless internet but couldn't. Headed out in the rain to see Will Scales on his property. and had a bit of a tour around before tea. Staying in a great little cottage on their property. Nice place for a holilday getaway

Alvis Brothers

Tuesday 27th & Wednesday 28th April 2010
Posted by Nikki
We set off for a place called Redhill near Bristol which is in the south West of England. We stayed with John & Pauline Alvis who run Alvis brothers. They have two sons Johnny and Peter who are also involved in their business along with about 120 other employees. It is a business that has lots of arms but essentially their philosophy is that they have land on which they grow grass, the grass feeds the cows who give the milk to make the cheese and they feed the whey from the cheese making process back to the pigs whos’ manure they spread on the paddocks for fertiliser. So its circular integration as each part of their business benefits another part. They also have a shop front in which they sell all of their cheese and pork products and also may other products from other local farm businesses. From oils, to yoghurts to vegies to even other peoples cheeses.


Peter gave us a tour through the cheese factory. It is a mammoth operation and produces a huge amount of hard cheeses. They currently have nearly 3000 tonnes of cheese in storage. We did a vertical tasting of different aged cheeses and the difference was very clear. The business appears to be very well structured and managed, with excellent staff retention rates which is a credit to their people management skills, which is something that often bigger businesses lack.

Nick Green gave us a tour around the farms, they have three separate dairies and a number of properties scattered through the villages. The roads through these little country villages are horrifyingly narrow and they have those awful hedges lining all the roads. Not only do they make driving dangerous but you cant see through them into the countryside which I find very annoying. The hedges are now protected though so that the badgers (that carry TB to infect the cattle,  are now also protected) and other little animals can have somewhere to live. I think they are terrible  but the locals don’t seem to mind them at all.

Monday 26th April 2010
Posted by Nikki
When we hired a car. Had the offer of an upgrade to a BMW for only 50pounds extra per day!!! Forced to decline. Set off in lovely sunny weather to West Malling where Balls’ rellies David & Joan Mitchem live.
It was great to catch up with them after 22 years. I stayed with them on my last trip to England. We went for a wander down the High Street and bought a local phone card to save on some costs. . David & Joan then took us out to see the National trust listed Ightham Mote which was a magnificent building. Very early to bed. think I have a bit of jet lag.

Ball's Study Trip - Trip No.2

Posted by Nikki:
Sunday 25th April 2010
Balls & I flew out from Adelaide to Melbourne and then went from Melbourne to Singapore arriving there at 9.15pm local time. There were a few nervous moments at the airport when we were told that our tickets on to London were just standby tickets and we would be lucky to fly out of there in the next few days. Luckily the girl didn't know what she was talking about and we flew out as scheduled at midnight to London. We arrived 13 hours later having had a half decent sleep and some remarkably good airline food. Zipped through the airport in 45 minutes and picked up our hire car.