Drilling Hyde Hall Farm 2013
Once cultivations have been completed and a good seed bed has been achieved then the drilling of crops for next year can begin….
Drilling is very time crucial and weather dependent. Oil seed rape is the first crop to be drilled post-harvest of the previous crop, establishment is imperative before the frosts and cold weather starts. Cereal crops are next; early drilling wheat varieties are drilled in early October and later drilling varieties towards November. Peas are then drilled later on in the spring time.
Farmers drill winter, spring or a mix of the two crops. It is dependent on the land they are farming and their end user markets.
At Hyde Hall Andrew incorporates his crop rotation over his larger farming operation by introducing a block crop rotation, crop rotation is very important to any farmer and must be adhered to so to achieve maximum yield, achieve the best results from the soil. Andrew uses a rotation of wheat, rape, wheat, peas.
Andrew has completed all of his winter drilling at Hyde Hall Farm, time will be spent now walking the crops assessing how they are establishing, what growth stage the crop is achieving, the graph below is used to measure how the crop is doing.
