Down on the Farm - Tillage
MY APOLOGIES to everyone in the village who wondered what was going on last month in the fields off Heath Road at Cadenham. The article I had written telling you all about what was happening was intended for the September issue, which I hadn't realised didn't happen! So, in retrospect .. .
As the road signs indicated, it was "Tillage". To explain, Tillage is a trade show for arable farmers to come and see all things new (and in some cases old) in seedbed preparation. As you now know from reading previous articles, getting a good seedbed is fundamental to getting a good crop the following harvest, so as farmers we try our best to achieve this.
Tillage is a national event and nearly all of the major machinery manufacturers attend. Most of the stands have working displays, which therefore obviously necessitates a large area. Farm shows have evolved a lot over the last few years. Some of the more traditional shows have either gone altogether or evolved into country shows catering for the general public as well. For these shows the machines sit on static stands and we have to believe the spiel of the sales man (is that right Tim?) on its performance and capabilities. However, in the field at a show like Tillage, the machine is left to do the talking.
The Royal Smithfield show in London is now not going to happen, primarily because it was getting very expensive to put on and also because fewer people were attending. This in my opinion was the right way to go - who wants to go to London just before Christmas to see small stands at a half empty Earls Court? The money the trade has saved now goes in to these more specialised shows such as Tillage and Cereals. Cereals is the major trade show of the year giving the farmer the opportunity to go and look at the growing of crops and discuss all aspects of arable farming.
On the eve of the Tillage event at Prior we had 5mm of rain, which meant that on the day visitors had the opportunity to see which machines coped best with sticky conditions. It was interesting to observe that the operators on some plots spent a lot of time "fine tuning", wasting time, to allow the ground to dry to show the equipment at its best - you would not be able to see this at a static show!
The organisers of the show judged the event to be a great success with an estimated 2,000 through the gate (well, one by air!!) and we were delighted to have been asked to host it.
Back to everyday life, and harvest was only completed on the Friday before Tillage. We started so well, with the fine hot spell in early July, yields were good and quality was excellent in all the milling wheats. We mistakenly thought that we were going to be in for an easy harvest with no drying costs and an early finish. How wrong could we have been? As soon as the schools broke up for the holidays the rain started and went on and on. This delayed completion and due to the excessive rainfall we experienced some sprouting in the ears!! (Not as painful as it sounds - it is where the grain grows before we can thrash the corn due to water logging). The quality in these fields dropped and we will therefore get less money per ton for the grain.
However, overall the harvest has been good with prices looking better, but these will certainly be swallowed up by the higher fuel and fertiliser costs.
Thank you once again to everyone who has passed on such positive comments about these articles and if you have any specific farming questions please do not hesitate to ask either via the Crier or phone me directly and I will do my best to answer them.
...but a request from the Birds and Blackberriers
THE TILLAGE FIELDS had a spruce-up before the Big Day with all the hedges being trimmed back neatly. ALAS, just when they were bursting forth with berries of all kinds, including some of the most luscious black-berries here-about. The Crier wonders if next year the exhibition could make do with the hedges as they are - extremely attractive at this time of year - and postpone the trim till later?