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A family farm of over 1,300 ha. with a variety of enterprises plus 360 ha. which we contract farm means that there is a lot going on and, as manager for the whole farm on behalf of the family, I aim to keep the farming operations relatively simple. On the arable side we work on a 3 year rotation of Wheat, Barley, Oilseed Rape with approximately 400 ha. of each. This is managed with the help of a Foreman, a tractor driver and a couple of part timers.... 

Hello everyone, the time of the month has come round to sit down on a wet evening and write another blog for you on here. You will have to forgive me for this blog being heavily about myself and my family as that has taken up my main focus in the past little while since writing last. For those of you who may not have heard on the various social media platforms that Rachel and I are part of, we have had our first child, a baby girl, Bonnie Williams... 

It was good to see Ukraine in the news for all the right reasons this week as they hosted England for the world cup qualifier in Kiev. I was lucky enough to acquire some tickets and enjoyed a fantastic game that was only marred by some mediocre football. The season has changed with the end of the long hot summer marked by cooler “coat and jumper” autumn temperatures.  Time to dig out the fleece. Wheat harvest is complete with official figures... 

With a little over 300 Ha. across several locations in Hampshire and Dorset my business is now largely focused on fruit and vegetables for ‘pick your own’ sites and sales through Farmers Markets. I also have farm diversifications such as various forms of accommodation (shepherd’s huts, yurts, wigwams and cabins), events (weddings, circus, shows). Here is my website www.dantanners.co.uk .  However, I still grow around 200 Ha. of cereals  and... 

I farm in a Joint Venture operation with two neighbours in Oxfordshire and we combine over 2,000 ha. crops with two Claas 770 combines. We also have rotational silage maize and grass and farm over an area stretching over 20 miles from one end to the other. Soils are generally fairly light running from gravel through chalk to heavier clay cap plus around 160 ha. of free-draining ‘fen land’. We have been extremely fortunate in having a good year... 

Oram and Sons is a family farming business on the north side of the Pewsey Vale in Wiltshire. Six partners in the business include three generations, though my Grandfather is less involved these days than he used to be. The daily running of the farm is down to my father, Philip, my uncle, Richard, cousins Nick and James and myself. In total we farm almost 1,000 Ha., including around 200 Ha. share-farmed plus bits and pieces of rented land. We have... 

Harvest 2013 is now well and truly underway with many winter barley crops now harvested and progress has been made with some spring barley and winter wheat. Winter OSR has been the most variable with some farms finished, some not started and some have the 2013 and the 2014 crops both in the ground! I have also have seen some crops of borage in Essex which have been swathed and harvested. Hyvido winter barley has provided some outstanding yields this... 

This is always an interesting time of year for us breeders, with official data finally coming, and the decisions about the future of varieties in official trial being made. It is nice to see your own programme coming up trumps with lines doing very well in national list trials years one and two. The national list trials provide a useful test of a variety, checking for DUS and VCU – that the variety is Distinct, Uniform and Stable, and has Value... 

Harvest started in the southwest with blazing sun and a blaze of activity, summer showers have now slowed progress as combines wade their way through mottled crops of oilseed rape , oats and spring barley. Wheat is largely an aspiration for the middle of next week. Quality on winter barleys has been superb with our boldest Cassia sample over 70 kg/hl and a thousand grain weight of 58 grams, yields have been variable but generally good. The Pearce... 

For plant breeders this time of year draws many analogies, an expectant father waiting outside the delivery ward, a sixth former waiting for their A level results or a batsman in the nervous nineties ! After 10 years of crossing, selecting, and nurturing it is all down to a handful of trial results to decide the fate of our babies, will they get that extra 1% of yield, what will that standing power rating be, it all goes round and round until the... 

At least in some respects, anyway!   This time last year we were looking at potentially the biggest planting of OSR seed in UK history, now we are looking at many planning a return to rotations involving more winter barley and more spring cropping, and therefore a reduction in OSR plantings. (the grain price doesn’t help either!)Wheat will probably stand still.   I’m sure everyone recalls the terrible establishment conditions of 2012,... 

I farm at Abingdon in Oxfordshire on about 2,500 acres with 1,000 milking goats and we also fatten beef cattle. We have around 2,000 acres of arable plus grass and maize, on a range of soil types. Production is predominantly Winter Wheat (1,200 acres normally) though this year we only managed to get in around 200 acres, on the light land, so have mainly Spring crops this time. In fact we drilled an additional 150 acres of Winter Wheat at the end of... 

Welcome to the Farmers Review Blog Section, we have been working hard for the past months working on a number of updates for the website. One of which being the blogging feature which gives opinion from farmers, agronomists, industry experts as well as international perspectives relevant to the UK industry.  With the blogs registered members have the chance to respond & make comments on what they have just read. We hope this tool gets used &...