Bure Valley Farm

October in Norfolk – Targets to be met…

I set out at the start of October with the intention that I would have a Rape crop sown in Fields 42 and 43 by the end of the month. It was a tall order as I needed to Lime those fields to get the pH levels correct. Then I would need to plough them before sowing the crop. Additionally, I knew that I’d have to buy a spreader for the lime, repair the plough and replace the current seeder with one that can do direct drilling in order to meet the precision farming ideal.

Early morning in the first week and I left my yard with the Amazone seeder hooked up to the Fendt…

…I had the seeder repaired and then sold it. I checked out the available spreaders and chose the Bruns MBA12000 at €24500. Capacity-wise it sits between two Amazone spreaders at 8000ltrs and seemed to be the best compromise with their ‘10001 model costing nearly three times as much and the 6001 just a little less. I decided to lime all 4 smaller fields where I had completed the soil-sampling. Here we are in field 44…

…you can see the green area where I have limed in the bottom left mini-map and you can tell that I’m working round the field. Even with the rate of spreading adjusted for the pH requirement, lime gets used up fast so I had to visit the dealers twice to refill the spreader as I limed the four fields – More on that later. With the spraying finished in that field, here I am waiting for a gap in the traffic to join the B1149, Holt road…

…There’s a lot of pulling in to let traffic past on this map – being a courteous farmer is an important part of driving in Norfolk.

With the spreading task complete, I swapped to the John Deere and took the plough down to the dealer for repairs. Then, with the shadows growing long, I set about ploughing field 42…

That concluded the first week of October. This is perhaps an opportune time to look at the crop calendar…

…as it differs from the one for Osada. I’m looking to sow two fields with Rape (Canola) and if you check row 3 you will see that I have until the end of October if I don’t want to have to wait until the Spring. I’m currently hoping to sow Oats in fields 41 and 44 next month, weather permitting. Then I can target field 1 for a spring sowing of Barley.

Although I have all this work to do on my own fields, it’s important to keep bringing in cash from elsewhere. So I took a job to harvest Corn at the start of the second week. I was leased a Case IH 9250 Axial Flow harvester for the job…

…It made a pleasant change, trying to see where I was going over the top of a crop…

…rather than looking down at the weeds in my own fields😅 I was also leased a Claas Axion 800 tractor and a Farmtech trailer capable of hauling 45000ltrs of grain in a single trip. I had to make the trip to Green Tower Grain twice using some of the back routes between fields…

…And passing some Poppies along the way. This part of Norfolk is sometimes called “Poppyland”! Anyway, after delivering the second trailer load of grain, the contract was considered complete and I had already received some of my ‘crop bonus’. But there was still over 5k ltrs of grain in the harvester, so I decided to take that back to my own silo – I will earn double the amount if I sell that in January! I completed the week by soil-sampling field 1.

The 3rd week of October and I’m back to ploughing…

…Completing the preparation of Field 43. Then it was time to go and find a direct drill seeder. There are some really expensive bits of kit on the market but in my price range there were a couple of Vaderstad’s – the 300c, which some of you may recall me using on Ferme du Vieux Chêne and it’s larger brother, the 400c. There was also a John Deere offering in the form of the 1590 and I decided this was the best choice, covering 4.5m each pass yet seeming more compact than the others. I decided to sow and roll field 42 during the rest of the week…

…continuing in the pouring rain and needing the full set of lights in the middle of the day to see what I’m doing! The rain had passed by mid-afternoon when I called back at the dealer to buy a roller…

…A Güttler Matador 610S with a 6m working width. You’ll notice that my bank balance is getting smaller with these essential equipment purchases! By the time I’d finished rolling field 42, it was evening and I took the roller and seeder to park up overnight at the biogas plant which sits behind my field 43.

The fourth week and we’re back to sowing…

…If you take a look in the top left corner you’ll see that the sowing rate is 35 seeds per square metre – lower than the 52 used in field 42. That’s because this is better quality soil. Sowing done, time to rock and roll…

…If you look ahead of the tractor you can see some small groups of stones but there are none behind – rolling pushes them back into the topsoil as part of the compacting process that helps reduce soil erosion and gives the seeds I just planted the best start.

Earlier I mentioned the rate at which lime is used when correcting the pH value of a field. I’m hoping to lime field 1 next month and I know that will need more than one trailer load to complete the job. With the distance between field 1 and the dealer where I have been buying lime, that will consume a lot of valuable time. So I decided to get the builders in and have a silo installed in my yard…

…That is now full of Lime, ready for next month😎

With the rolling in field 43 finished, there was not a lot more I could do other than take a check around the yard as the rain moved in once more…

…It may look empty but everything has been put away neatly – just got to shut that door on the barn across the way. Time for an evening stroll along the ditch behind the farm and some moments thinking by the pond across the road…

Well, I met my target – two fields of Rape sown and I finally feel like this is my farm. I’ll admit that I had some misgivings when I saw the size of the fields in the area but I’m now adjusting to the workload involved. Next month I’ll be looking to prepare and plough the rest of my fields and hopefully earn some cash from other farmers too👍