Last Wednesday saw the birth of our first child Toby. He was born at six am and weighed 8lb 1. Mother and son are doing well. Sharon and I would like to say a massive thank you to all the well wishers we are really overwellmed by all the lovely things that people had said and done, espesially all the food and cakes that we have been sent. I'm doing a great job of making up new songs to entertain them with. The one trouble is that I haven't got much skill in this department. I have started to tell Toby storiues about all sorts of things that he doesnt understand, and I have a theme song that I use it goes a little like this...

Toby and Tim, Toby and Tim, tra la la la lala la la,

Toby and tim, Toby and tim, tra la la la lala la la,

I think there's a bit more work to be done to the tune before its ready for public release. I'll Keep you posted.

 On the farm all is going as it should be. Its too wet to be doing much in the fields at the moment which is just as well because the sprayer has had a small accident, ask Mr T for more on that! Henry has been busy putting posts in the ground along the farm roads. This is to mark where we are going to plant some tree's to make the roads tree lined. The idea is to plant trees every so often along the roads. we are going to stager them so that if we need to get large machinery through we can still do this. I had planed to put the tree's every 50 meters on each side so that if youi looked at the road from the side you would see a tree every 25 meters. Henry went out and did this, and dad and I decicided that it was too close so we got him to move them to 75 meters apart. Poor Henry he gets all the good jobs!

We had the Harvest supper again this year and it was another great success we had 90 people in the end, and like before we had the skittle's which I think I my team won, the only thing was I din't actually thow any balls along the ally. Henry took my place, and I think it was down to his double strikes that the team won, but he was playing on my nbehalf so I think I can clam that one. I also finally managed to pass on the curse of the golden tyre. 

I have to go now Its Toby's bath time and I love this time of the day. 

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As promised its now time for me to introduce Henry to you. Henry joined us this summer, he came straight from the agricultural college, Harper Adams university college, This is the same place that I went, as well as my two cousins, my soon to be brother in law and my uncle Nick Brown who does our agronomy. This means that I can relate to some of the things he got up to in his time there. 

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Harvest is now all but finished and I have a little time for reflection before we get busy planting the cereals again. We have already planted quarter of the farm down to oil seed rape, and need to wait a short while before we start on the cereals.

A lot has happened since my last update. Mark, and Sarah Davis have had a new baby boy called George, he was a massive baby of over 8 pounds and be brings the family up to 7 which is pretty impressive. We have also taken on a new man called Henry he applied for the position I posted earlier in the year and he started in July. I’ll do a little blog about him next, now that we have got to know him.

We had our first woodland wedding blessing this August which was really exciting! Dad had done a lot of work to make a clearing in one of the woods and sowed grass seed in it to make a woodland glade. It was great seeing all the guests entering the wood and winding their way through the path not really knowing what to expect. Then seeing their faces as the came out into the clearing, which had bales laid out for seats and staff serving Champagne. We also had our first legal wedding ceremony at the beginning of August. This was a great wedding, half the guests were Indian ( the Bride’s side of the family) and I got dragged up to do a spot of Bangra  dancing which is so much fun I think it should be promoted - even a fool like me can do it!

Dad managed to break his arm near the beginning of harvest so he has been out of action but only a bit - he has still been helping out as much as a one arm bandit can. Luckily we had a chap called Guillaume from France over to learn a bit of English. He was a lot of fun and found life in the country side to be very action packed. Once dad did his arm in Guillaume became dads arms, Dad would get him to drive him around the farm or to the grain store and stand where he could get to and then Guillaume had to run around doing what Dad asked him to do.

Our new combine has been a great success we have had quite an easy harvest we have worked less hours, but cut loads more in the time that we have been cutting. It has been really good and we have been able to cut most of our wheat when it has been dry which means that we’ll save money on drying costs, and that the crop should have a better quality about it. We have about forty hectares of wheat left to cut and another 46 ha of Beans the great thing is that we can do the area of wheat in an afternoon, so it really isn’t that stressful, and I’m all in favour of that!

That’s about all the news for now, but I’ll try to return to the blog sooner next time. See you for now!

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Its now the time of the year that we sit back and watch the crops fulfill their potential. There is nothing more that we can do to the crops to ensure that they grow the most that they are going to. Wheat is our main crop on the farm grown mostly for human consumption, with some grown specifically for animal feed. It was planted in September and since then we have been busy ensuring that it has the best chance in life.

The first threat came from slugs, I spent a good deal of my time from September until November monitoring the crops for an attack from this slimy enemy. We monitor the numbers of slugs in the area, and if the numbers reach a specific threshold we have to use slug pellets - these are a pesticide which are supposed to be selective in that they only target slugs and snails. When I use slug pellets I see it as a sign that there is something in my system that is failing, in a perfect system with healthy soils slugs don't present themselves as a threat. There are enough natural predators around to keep the slug numbers below the treatment threshold. This year I had to use a lot of slug-pellets the slugs were around in huge populations and did some real damage to my crops, they were able to move about in the wet conditions and they bred loads.

The next threat is weeds. We use a herbicide to prevent weeds from over competing with the crop as it grows. Weeds compete with the crop for light, water and nutrients, so it is important that we control them. Some weeds are harder to control than others - my hardest weed to control is a grass-weed called brome grass. it is hard to deal with because it is so similar to wheat, and herbicides work by exploiting the differences between wheat and the weed species. It could take a couple of approaches to sort out the weeds through the season, but the first application is usually in the autumn. On some of the crops this year we were unsure whether the crops were going to make it through the winter so we delayed controlling the weeds which has led to more weeds in the fields at this time of year.

In the spring I start by giving the crops some nitrogen allow the plants. They receive three dose's of nitrogen through the season. We are quite unique here in that we apply sugar in the form of molasses along with the fertiliser. We do this because we are trying to make the process that turns applied nitrogen into food for the plants more efficient. The plants do not take up the nitrogen that we apply directly it has to go be taken up by the bacteria in the soil and then the waste from this process is what feeds the plant. The idea of applying sugar is that we can give the soil bacteria more energy so that they reproduce quicker and producer more waste from naturally occurring nitrogen in the air, thus reducing our reliance on artificial nitrogen. It will be years before we start to see real benefits from this work, but I figure the sooner I start the sooner I'll see the benefits. Because our crops were looking at bit average this year I reduced the total amount of nitrogen that I applied to the fields. The crop was really varied across each field so I used satellite pictures to identify the better bits of the field and I chose to apply a normal rate to the better areas and reduce the rate on the poorer looking bits.

As the crop is growing it suffers from various fungal attacks, I control these with fungicides at two/three/four stages of the plants growth depending on the year. The aim of using these products is to keep the last three remaining leaves of the plant as green as possible for as long as possible, with the last fungicide aimed at the ear in a bid to keep mycrotoxins of the marketed grain. It is important to keep the leaves green because they are vital for photosynthesis which produces growth and ultimately yield. The most important leaf is the last one to come out - it is called the flag leaf and it the one nearest the ear. Any reduction in the green area of this leaf has a direct impact on final yield.

I have now completed all of these husbandry tasks and it is now down to how much sunlight and available moisture is around which will determine the final yields. It is typically the time of year that farmers invite neighbours to come around and judge each-others crops and I have two coming on Thursday to look at my winter rape and spring barley - Wish me luck!        

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