Farm Diary Sept 3 2008

We do have several hundred acres of barley straw in Hampshire, and not much of that has arrived at the farm yet. Our grass drilling operations are not possible as the drill would block up in these conditions, but it is still early enough and that will come right by the time you read this hopefully.

We have sub-soiled two fields we sprayed off, and by ripping them in both directions we can now get the seed bed worked down and drilled. We did that because they had been so badly rutted in the past, and it is far quicker and easier than ploughing this heavy weald clay. I fully expect an 'Indian Summer' which will take us through into November; the weather always compensates, and everyone deserves a break!

We had quite a few staffing 'issues' last week (we normally do!). Sadly, one of our men from the Philippines lost his mother, suddenly; although she had been ill for a very long time.

This meant urgent arrangements for him to fly home and a fast run to Heathrow after getting him on an afternoon flight. Our new Bulgarian couple, who are both going to work on the farm, milking cows, arrived on Tuesday.

They do not speak a word of English, not even 'Hello'! Being EU citizens, they are not taken through the same procedure as the others (by the agent), as they are free to travel at will. I had an email telling me that their English was not good, but that is quite normal, but we are in new territory here.

The real problem is that they don't speak Russian either, as all the Eastern European workers speak Russian, it would not be too bad, but these people are from the Turkish area of Bulgaria and no one speaks Turkish here.

Therefore, only one other worker (Bulgarian) can converse with the new workers, and he leaves in a month! They have started work last week and are not only experienced, but very good. As they are older, they understand how things should be done, and are very conscientious, which means that we want them to stay.

I have accessed the Dairy Co booklets and videos (available in every Easter European language), and moved them in with Miroslav, who's job is to teach them enough English to show progress after two weeks, and enough for us to converse with them in four weeks; a tall order, but not impossible. Adrian (herd manager) is on holiday for two weeks, and well out of all this!

The maize is a forest of green after all this rain, except at Tillington where I drilled very early indeed (April 17th). Here the maize is the normal six to seven foot high, and the cobs are very well developed indeed. Elsewhere harvest looks to be well into October, with massive tonnage which will dilute the starch, and although huge tonnage is good when 'talking to mates down the pub' as it were, it's the starch in the cob that produces the milk, and it may be an idea to cut higher this year, leaving some 'wood' in the fields. It depends on the plant at the time really; if it's still green and soft it might be alright. I hope the maize silage we are feeding at present will last until we cut at Tillington next month.

I have started buying winter feed, taking advantage of lower cereal prices. I have made two decisions for this winter. I will keep the ration as simple as possible, and I will stick to feeds that I trust and know produce the goods, as those 'cheap' feeds are well overpriced and I have never been happy with them to be honest. I trust wheat, Soya, rape meal, and maize glutton (which is now difficult to get). Sugar beet is now even more overpriced than it normally is, and moist feeds and other by products, totally over the top on price, and of dubious feed value as modern plants extract more and more out of the crop. All those 'magic' ingredients are to be avoided, and it's back to basics for us. Maize and grass silage balanced with wheat, Soya rape-meal and minerals; simple.

We had a Welsh TV crew at the farm for two days last week, filming for the farming programme on S4C 'Ffermio'. The added attraction was the fact that my niece is here for six weeks as a student, and she turned out to be the star, especially when during the interview she claimed that it was 'very hard work', and that I was 'difficult to please'! One wastes a lot of time hanging around unless a plan of action awaits their arrival. I have learnt (from past experience) that a time-table is useful, and I could then get on with building site meetings and organising the farm, only turning up at specific times for 'action'. I would be driven to distraction if I had to hang around whilst fiddling around with lighting and waiting for each aircraft to distance itself before repeating yet again the same scene or interview. I'll stick to cows I think.