Stocken Farm News
From Lacey Green History
Click Stocken Farm for more about the farm
Hallmark May 2025 Photos below on the right.
I hope this isn’t our last Hallmark article but its looking like it could well be as, as far as I know, no one is taking over from our editor Mike who has been doing an excellent job for at least 16 years.
Hallmark first came out in 1970. My mum, Joan West, started writing in the Hallmark in 1976. At that time it came out every other month. I took over from her and have been contributing an article about the farm for the last few years. One more year and we would have been contributing for 50 years - that is a lot of articles! The good news is, they can all be found on mum’s website: LaceyGreenHistory.com. Joan’s website is a huge resource of history of the people, places and events in and around Lacey Green. She is continuously researching and compiling it. If anyone has any information about local history she would love to receive it, you can contact her on: [[1]].
When Hallmark first came out my grandparents, Dick and Hilda West, were farming Stocken Farm in Partnership with my parents, John and Joan. Later myself and my wife, Maxine, joined the Partnership. Hopefully our children, Charlotte and Robert, will become Partners before long. They have both been working on the farm for a number of years now and it’s time their enthusiasm and new ideas are put to the test to drive the business forward.
Much has changed over the years. Many different enterprises have come and some have gone. Some of you will be surprised to learn we used to have a flock of sheep and a herd of Pigs. For many years we had about 1500 hens and raised replacement pullets, selling fresh eggs direct from the farm. We also used to do Christmas turkeys and cockerels, up to 1000 at one point. We have had milking cows since at least the 1950s and they have become the main part of the business, along with raising beef cattle and growing various arable crops. Over the years we have grown: oats, barley, oilseed rape, linseed, flax, triticale and turnips. We currently grow milling wheat to sell and grass, maize, lucerne and rye to feed the cows.
Similarly to 1976, the first year we wrote in Hallmark, we seem to be in a drought. Grass has been very slow to grow with cold nights as well, until the 30 mm of rain we had in about 2 hours on the 12th May. We were lucky to get this as it was very localised. A lot of crops are beginning to look desperate for rain and will consequently not deliver well at harvest.
The cows have been out grazing for a couple of months now. We have managed to keep enough grass growing and, with the dry spring, we have had excellent grazing conditions (see photo of Daisy the red cow leading the herd out to grass after milking).
We planted some maize after our first cut of grass using a strip till technique. This is where only a small strip of land is cultivated. This is plotted with GPS . Then a drill comes and plants the seed using GPS again to put it in the same strip (see photo). This method prevents water loss so the seed will germinate quicker and more evenly. Also less land is cultivated saving fuel and protecting carbon within the soil. We will be able to compare with the conventionally sown crop before long.
On the 11th of May we hosted the County Young Farmers pre Rally day (before the Country Show in Bledlow on the 31st May). This included fencing, clay shooting and stock judging competitions (see photos of young farmers from around the county scrutinising the beef cattle for the competition). All the competitions are awarded points for the overall Rally Trophy. Our local club, Princes Risborough Young Farmers, are organising and hosting the show at Bledlow this year. Everyone is welcome to come along, it’s a great day out, so get the date in your diary!
Hallmark February 2025. The days are getting longer; we have had snowdrops and the odd daffodil has made an appearance. Spring is around the corner, and we are heading out of winter. The grass is starting to grow again, we were able to roll two new grass leys in February that were planted last autumn. We have to do this before the grass gets too long. This is to push the flints in to the ground so we don’t hit them with our mower when we make silage.
The grass grew well into December, but the ground is very wet. Anyone walking the paths around and about may well have noticed that we have had sheep in, they are just visiting for a month or so. Thank you to everyone that has called or messaged when they have spotted issues with the visitors, there always seems to be something up! They are here to eat all the old grass ready for the new spring growth.
We recently won the Thame Farming Club’s grass silage competition, this is silage made last year. We went on to the next round against 5 other farming clubs and came second which was a shame as it would have been a result to have the best silage in Oxfordshire!
The Agricultural and Business Inheritance tax changes announced in the Autumn are still casting a dark shadow over the farming industry.
There will be farmers in a very dark place on what is currently being played out in Westminster. With the future of an inevitable tax bill hanging over a business, like an unexploded bomb in the front yard waiting to go off when the one that holds the deeds dies. Family farms are often multigenerational It would not be unusual for there to be 3 generations working together; an older generation with two younger generations doing the farming, making a living, growing food.
Farmers have been trying to make a presence felt with various rallies, several in London, the last one involved 1400 tractors in Whitehall. Charlotte represented the farm, she was amazed at the public support on the day . See the photo taken in Whitehall. You may not have seen this, especially if you get your news from the BBC, there was almost no coverage! So far, very dignified affairs, but emotions are running high. Farmers do not believe the government figures.
For example, I have a dairy farmer friend in Cornwall whose father still owns the farm which is not unusual, he is 95. He farms with his 60 year old sons and their sons. If he dies after April 2026, when the new rules kick in, the inheritance tax bill will be too much to pay from profits, even when split over 10 years. They will then have to sell business assets. You could sell the cows but then you have nothing to milk; you could sell the land but then you don’t have enough to run the business; either way the business will not survive in its current form. The older generation would have spent their whole life building the business. The farm is everything to them; their home, their business, their life. I sincerely hope his father resists the strong temptation to not still be here after next April; it is a very real and appalling situation to be in.
Who will buy the land? Most farmers cannot afford it. It will still appeal to wealthy non-farmers as they can avoid 20% inheritance tax. The likelihood is less land will be farmed by established businesses that are the main producers of food. This could certainly dramatically reduce our ability to produce the food we currently do at Stocken Farm. We will only know the true consequences as they unfold. Let’s hope other countries don’t all rewild their land and can keep producing enough food to sell to us in the UK, to feed our approaching 70 million population.
The NFU, together with other farmer organisations, recently had a meeting with Treasury ministers to discuss all the complications this policy will bring. They had suggestions on how the IHT proposals could be restructured to still raise the tax they required, and not seriously effect so many food producing businesses. They were basically told to go away. Disappointing.
On a brighter note we did an early spring bird survey in mid-February, 43 species were recorded. The stars of the survey were : a large flock of Chaffinch in our winter bird feed patch, some Brambling, a Stonechat and 2 Common Snipe.
Hallmark June 2024. The extremely wet winter weather is still having its effect on farmers in the region. On average we have had an inch of rain per week since mid-October. With breaks in the weather allowing frantic periods of work to get overdue tasks done. Spring cereals were planted later than most would have liked for optimal yields, these crops replacing the planned autumn planted crops that never got planted or failed to get established. Our maize has been planted in mid-May when we are usually aiming for the last week of April, this will push the harvest date back a bit. But good planting conditions should allow the crop to get off to a good start.
The cows have been turned out a month later as we waited for the grazing fields to dry enough not to be instantly churned up by their feet. We operate a hybrid system where the cows have top up feed indoors and also graze so we are more flexible.
There are many farmers, more to the west of the U.K. that rely on grass only in the spring. With the cold wet weather in March and April these cows have not milked well, which has reduced the U.K.’s spring flush of milk. This is when the country peaks in milk production, and the milk price is often reduced. In the middle of May the U.K. were producing 44.13 million litres of milk per day which is 903,000 litres less per day than last year, 2.4% down on long term average.
Arla announced this spring it is planning a new cheese plant in Devon, making mozzarella. Cheese making helps with the spring flush. Milk supply is finely balanced. The USA is 1% down in milk production which will probably lead to milk prices rising later this year.
Winter crops of wheat do not look good here, but also across Northern Europe and Russia (a major exporter) which will result in a smaller 2024 harvest and putting pressure on wheat prices, something we will probably notice in food prices next year.
We did the first cut of grass for silage on 20th April, hopefully 2nd cut will be around a month later. If we can cut the grass before it goes to seed, the silage we make will be high in protein and highly digestible so the cows produce more milk from it, hopefully resulting in us needing to feed less of the expensive concentrates. See the photo above for a red kite’s view of silaging and the photo below of grass being picked up in a field called ‘Wathams’. (if you walk the footpath between Westlands and Church Lane you will recognise it).
The picture shows maize being planted in a field we call ‘Moseley’ in Naphill. Maize seed has got very expensive, now costing towards £100 acre, so you can’t afford to make mistakes, or plant it in the wrong conditions.
On a positive note our herd has now been declared free of Bovine Tuberculosis (TB). We have tested all the cows 5 times in the last year, some have been culled but we have now had 2 clear tests, so a big relief.
However, we are a closed herd, which means we do not buy cows in, so the initial TB infection probably came from infected wildlife in the area, making it highly likely to return. We try to mitigate against this but, with cattle now going out to graze, it becomes very difficult.
Construction has started of our new grain store. Hopefully this will be ready for this year’s harvest. Our old grain barn is over 40 years old, it has been a subject of conversation during our Red Tractor Audits and is no longer really fit for purpose. The walls, being made of metal, are becoming weak with fatigue and the roof is not high enough to tip modern trailers so its replacement should be a big improvement. It will also be easier to clean and so keep insect and rodent free.
We will soon be planting up some areas to be left for nature as part of our Mid-Tier Agreement. These are field corners and less productive areas of the farm. We are planting 3 plots of nectar flowers and several areas to provide bird food next winter, that should provide food in the hungry months for various farmland birds.
We have some hedge planting planned in for next near. We have done the first bird survey this spring, still with good numbers recorded despite not being the kindest of weather on the day. We will be doing another one shortly and a butterfly survey is being conducted throughout the summer so lots of things are happening!
Hallmark December 2024. True to form the weather has been challenging us again. The extremely wet spell from mid-September to mid-October came right at maize harvest and planting of winter cereals. It looked like a re run of last year. However the anti-cyclone that we have had since then has allowed most field work to have been completed.
The wheat we harvested in the summer is now being sold. We have run in to a problem because it contains Ergot and the mill will not buy wheat with Ergot. Ergot is
a fungus and, this year, it is widespread in the area; I think weather conditions have favoured its life cycle. It is like a very large black grain. The good news is, it can be cleaned out by a machine called a colour sorter that takes the black ergot out of the beige wheat. The bad news is, it is slow and expensive but it will be what we have to do.
In mid-November we had to complete our TB test. I am pleased to say we had no issues so our herd remains officially TB free. This is good news, especially as quite
a few farms locally have got TB issues, for now I believe there is none in the parish.
The big concern and talking point in the farming community is the Budget. There are serious consequences for agriculture (as there will be for any other small family run business). The biggest concern is the change to Agricultural Property Relief (APR). This was established to prevent farming families from having to sell their primary source of income to pay IHT, as it passes between generations. Without APR, smaller farms could become untenable and the family business come to an end, the allowances are not enough. The percentage of ‘real working farms’ at risk would be very high (the Treasury appear to have included smallholdings and country houses with pony paddocks in their calculations, not just actual working farms). APR was protecting working farms producing food for the population, and they do contribute greatly to food production. Most farms are made up of small family businesses with multiple generations working together producing food and caring for the countryside.
The new IHT implications that are being introduced are disproportionate to farm incomes, a farm doesn’t generate enough income to pay the tax bill, even spread
over ten years. This means land would have to be sold, probably to non-farmers, potentially reducing food production and making the businesses less viable going
forward. Food security is a subject that few people in this country worry about , as a nation we are already far from self-sufficient, let’s hope in the future it’s something people still don’t worry about, because its not guaranteed. Of course you never know when the time will come, so all businesses will be vulnerable in the short term. With people’s homes and livelihoods at risk.
Older generations are very upset after years of work the rules are changed and there is little they can do in the short term. These rules are set to change in April 2026, for some the only answer will be to not be still here at that point, we have already heard of this happening. With mental health issues in the farming community already running high this is just going to make things a whole lot worse.
Hallmark February 2024. Report by Richard West
Finally, as we got into the new year, we have had some drier weather. The autumn has been particularly difficult with such high rainfall. The wet weather has caused us several problems, we have been unable to plant all the Winter Wheat that we planned, and some that we have has yet to fully emerge and may need replanting. We planted 60 acres of grass seeds before it started raining. This seed has rotted in waterlogged soil and will need replanting. This was for grass we hoped to silage at the end of April so another plan will have to be made. We have also ended up with more water in our dirty water lagoon, so this has needed spreading, earlier than we would have liked. Being shut down with TB we have more stock on farm, meaning more cattle are being outwintered, so drier conditions would have been preferred. No doubt it will not rain again and by summer we will be crying out for rain, it’s the way the weather seems to go at present!
The TB rumbles on with one reactor in our November test. We are testing again at the end of January. We need to have 2 clear tests to be declared TB free. We are quite over stocked, every barn is full, so we will have to look at selling some cattle at an Orange TB market. This is a market where only DEFRA registered TB fattening units can buy the cattle. Probably not very local to here and at quite a discount.
With the challenges farmers face there has been more interest in the government's environmental schemes, with quite a bit of land coming out of production. With large scale solar projects and house building also taking out land, land for food production is getting squeezed. I hope food security is a priority for the Government, it feels that it should be with the uncertainties in the world.
We have had an 8% milk price rise since the New Year, this is very welcome as we have been running under the cost of production for a few months. The price had been dropping for us for the last 12 months. I notice when the slow down in inflation is talked about food prices are mentioned as though they are just coming down, for us they have been low for 9 months at least.
Princes Risborough Young Farmers, which most of our staff are members of, have been busy in recent weeks, with 2 charity events. They organised a tractor run back in mid-December. This involved a large convoy of tractors that went from Thame via Chinnor, Princes Risborough, Haddenham and back to Thame. 225 tractors took part. Then after Christmas they did a Christmas tree collection and disposal. This was done with all the takings going to charity any costs involved the Young Farmers donated. They supported two charities the Royal Agricultural Benevolent Society which received £4,625 and the Rennie Grove Hospice which received £10,125. So, if you were held up in traffic by 225 tractors or had your tree collected by them it was in a good cause.
In 2025 Princes Risborough are holding the YFC countryside rally again, so preparations for this have already started. This will be in early June and is being held in Bledlow. Young Farmers is open to anyone (you don't have to be a farmer) from early teens up to the age of 26. They always welcome new members so if you're young and at a loose end its worth looking them up.
Our improvement work on the cattle winter housing is slowly taking shape. Hopefully it will be complete soon as it feels like the weather is changing and soon the milking cows will be better housed. The younger beef stock will stay out longer, possibly all winter.
From a drilling point of view, we still have more wheat to plant. The window of opportunity seems to get smaller each year. You cannot plant too early as the weed blackgrass will grow very strongly and be uncontrollable, but leave it too late and the ground can get too wet to work. After October yield potential gradually drops off.
We have just applied for a mid-tier agreement with the help of the Cluster group. This is an agreement for management grants and capital items to protect and enhance the natural environment. This has to be accepted by the Rural Payments Agency (part of DEFRA). We should know early in the new year if it is accepted. It involves for example tree planting, hedge planting, wildflower strips and herbal leys. Fingers crossed again we will know after Christmas, speaking of which we wish you all a Happy Christmas aTrue to form the weather has been challenging us again. The extremely wet spell from mid-September to mid-October came right at maize harvest and planting of winter cereals. It looked like a re run of last year. However the anti-cyclone that we have had since then has allowed most field work to have been completed. We will hopefully be able to report the outcome in the February edition.
Hallmark November 2023. Report by Richard West
This summer Charlotte was encouraged to enter the Cream Awards. These are national awards run by the British Dairying Magazine. This starts with a written entry, which is judged to create a shortlist. Then three judges visit the farms to make their final decisions. This year the awards ceremony was in the Grosvenor Hotel Park Lane, in early September. With high hopes that she would do well (the judges visit seemed to go well) we scrubbed up and headed to London.
The trip was worthwhile, to her parents’ great pride she did well winning two categories. Firstly ‘Young Dairy Farmer of the Year’ and secondly ‘Youngstock Health and Welfare Award’. Well done, Charlotte, a good achievement, only achieved with good staff, a number of whom joined us at the Grosvenor. It is interesting how many people in the trade have seen this result and have passed on their congratulations. Charlotte is making a name for herself in the dairying world.
Back at home we have had a busy summer. With harvest weather being a bit temperamental it was a bit challenging at times and the grain quality was affected. So far, our wheat has been accepted by Heygates Flour Mill but with financial claims on most loads as it is not making full specification. The current price this year is about two thirds of what it was last year, as is our milk price, ‘both have been dropping all year. We have not noticed a significant drop in the price of milk in the shops.
We have had many cows calve this summer and autumn. We would normally sell the beef cross calves once they are about 4 weeks old, to other farmers to rear. However, since June we have been shut down with TB and unable to sell them locally.
TB looks like it must be spread by wildlife as we do not buy cattle in. The cattle that reacted to the test had been grazing in fields near Walters Ash. We must have two clear tests 60 days apart to be able to sell them without restriction. We did one in August, but it wasn't clear. We are testing at the end of October and then just after Christmas. Each test takes 4 days and many hours of Staff time preparing. Several other farms nearby (within 5 miles) that had been shut down are now Clear, so fingers crossed.
Hallmark August 2023. Report by Richard West.
On June 11th we opened our gate for Open Farm Sunday, along with 250 other farms around the U.K., five years after the last time. Open Farm Sunday is organised by Leaf (Linking Environment and Farming). It is thought 170,000 people visited a farm on June 11th this year. We think around 400 of them visited Stocken Farm; we hope they found their visit rewarding.
For the weeks running up to the big day we wondered why we had decided to do it, there is a lot of preparation .... tidying up, setting up, doing risk assessments, persuading all the helpers that this is how they want to spend their Sunday! This was a free event, and all the displays of machinery and other displays were done by farming friends and family, with the only reward being of feeling the farming industry and its consumers had become a little closer together. We had many interesting questions from you, about cows, crops, hedge row management etc. and a surprising number asking if we sell unpasteurised milk direct to the public (the answer is no). These are good questions for us as it makes us look at our industry from a different angle. Our staff enjoyed the opportunity to showcase the stock they tend day in, day out; also being able to explain why we may be combining near your house late on a Sunday night or on the road with our equipment holding the traffic up. It’s not just for fun but trying to do an operation which is all part of the ultimate aim of farming which is to produce good quality food, which is still very popular. Hopefully making a profit on the way.
Arla, our milk cooperative sent us out a pallet of Arla products for visitors to sample, which three members of their staff came down to hand out. They came from down Leeds and London, volunteering their own time. Phil Hunter, a keen metal detectorist for many decades, came to display his finds that he has found in the local area; fascinating history found in the fields around us. Fiona, another local farmer, brought her beehives (without bees) to demonstrate how apiculture works; her husband lan provided the tractor and trailer rides all day, which were constant) in demand. Princes Risborough Young Farmers also ran a barbeque, and helped run the day, a big workforce that also gave their day up in the interest of farming.
In June, lan our herdsman for over 25 years, decided to hang up the clusters for the last time. We thank him for his dedication to our cows and business, and wish him well in the future. Over his time the business has changed quite dramatically; cow numbers have risen and milk yields per cow have gone up by nearly 50%. Expectations in milk quality have risen and the pressures of farming have changed. Nowadays numerous people come to the farm with clipboards making sure we do everything to their standard. Availability of skilled farm staff is becoming an ever-increasing issue for our industry. Farmers are looking at all sorts of technical solutions like robotic milking, these will help but won't remove the need for skilled agricultural staff. It is often a career not promoted at school age, but it is worth considering. We are increasingly operating with part time employees.
In early August we expect to start our wheat harvest. So far, the crops look in good condition, so fingers crossed they deliver a good yield and are up to milling quality. Since we planted the wheat, the value per tonne has gone from around £200/ton to £350/ton, it has now dropped back £170/ton for harvest movement. It is so difficult to predict which direction the price will go from there. We have made our grass silage, and whole crop rye and barley.
The last main forage to come in will be the maize in September. It's been a difficult spring to establish maize, with constant wet in March and April and much of May, changing rapidly to baking dry in June. We have approximately 20 acres of maize planted at the end of May which only germinated in July as it went dry straight after planting, this will probably come to nothing much.
While the cows are out during summer, we have been improving our cow housing, which is proving to be very time consuming, but will be good by the time the cows are housed.
Hallmark May 2023. Report by Richard West
I hope by the time you read this you will have dug out your fans and sunglasses and be getting fed up with dry warm weather! The dry February allowed us to do a little field work, but it’s not until March we really have lots to do. Six weeks of damp wet weather has pretty much ground us to a halt. On Monday 27th March I think that every farmer in Bucks was out spraying or fertilising or rolling, the Monday after that was nice as well.
In March we usually are preparing to plant maize by spreading manure, and starting cultivating, aiming to plant from mid-April onwards once soil temperature has got to 10c.
Wheat will have its first fungicide to protect it from Yellow Rust and a growth regulator This stops the wheat growing too tall and strengthens it, this keeps it standing upright – as a crop that falls over is disastrous in terms of yield and grain quality. The wheat will also receive some nitrogen fertiliser with sulphur. There are many varieties of wheat that have been bred by plant breeders. They all have different characteristics like grain quality, disease resistance, lodging (falling over) resistance. We try to choose a variety that has good disease resistance, good yield has grain characteristics that our grain buyer wishes to buy. The wheat looks well at present. The feed wheat price has dropped from a peak last year of £350 per ton to under £200. We could currently sell wheat for £217 for delivery in March ‘24. On top of these prices is a milling premium for bread making wheat of between £20-50.
So, will the price of a loaf of bread drop significantly? Despite wheat flour being 75% of the ingredients it generally only contributes 11-15 % of the costs, so it will make little difference in a loaf. The value of the flour element in a loaf has dropped by about 4p. A kilogram of Milling wheat is currently worth 25p, an 880g loaf will use about 0.5kg. The other costs are milling costs, bakery costs, other ingredients, packaging, marketing, and transportation, and of course retailer costs and profits.
The milk price roller coaster ride is in full descent on the steepest slope, dairy farmers are holding on tight and shutting their eyes hoping the downhill doesn’t go on too long. Not surprisingly some want to get off (sell up)! In March our milk price went down 7%, followed by an 11% drop in April. Some of our costs are going down i.e. wheat is part of our cows ration, and fertiliser has come down, but most will have bought at much higher prices.
Charlotte has just been for a short course to the Global Training Center in Washington State studying Advanced Dairy Management. She has been to several countries recently; it is fascinating to see how they all have very different approaches to producing the same product... milk! We try to adapt the best practices from all to our situation here.
In February I went to the NFU conference in Birmingham. The I secretary of state Therese Coffey gave a speech and did a question-and-answer session.
When it came to questions, she was quite arrogant, she seemed almost bored and not interested in issues like why the UK has 1 million fewer laying hens than it did, or the costs of growing salad crops, both issues people may have noticed in empty shelves at times. (Interestingly farm shops and smaller shops seem to have supply, supermarkets have had the empty shelves, probably something about supplier relations I expect).
Later in the Commons she went on to suggest we should be eating seasonable veg like turnips rather than out of season salad, which does have some merit only for the previous largest producer of turnips to remark he had stopped growing turnips because of the costs involved and the inability to find the labour required now. Food security and policy doesn’t seem to be that important to our politicians, fingers crossed other countries keep growing and producing enough for us.
On June 11th we will be opening the farm again for ‘Open Farm Sunday’. (See pictures of our last OFS in 2018). This is an open day where we open to the public to show what we do. Hopefully there will be trailer rides to fields, machinery to learn about, calves to meet and cows to see being milked. So hopefully we will see you here, fingers crossed, hoping for that long awaited sunny weather will still be here on the day!
Hallmark November 2022. Report by Richard West
This autumn has been relatively dry, we had expected it to turn wet after the drought of the summer. We have had good recovery of grass, allowing a group of the milking cows to graze well into October and a good number of youngstock are still out.
The dry weather of the summer has certainly affected our silage stocks (the main feed for the cattle for the winter) and I think it will have to be carefully rationed over the winter to make it last.
Some of the other by products we use are also in tight supply. The supply of brewer’s grains which are the mashed residue of barley (a good form of protein) from the brewing process are in erratic supply. We use about 30 tonnes every fortnight but cannot always get them in time. The ones we use usually come from the Carlsberg Brewery in Northampton. Hopefully beer production will increase in the run up to Christmas. We are no longer able to get citrus pulp, which was the residue of fresh oranges squeezed for juice, as small part of a ration they provided sugar and fibre.
As predicted the harvest in the summer was very early (see photo of harvest behind Culverton farm). At times it was quite worrying; with tinder dry conditions, fire was a serious concern. On one day whilst harvesting, smoke could be seen from three fires, in the local area at the same time.
In the Chilterns we are at risk of fires being created when the combine skids hit flints on the ground causing sparks and starting fires. We did have a small fire behind the engine of the combine, this could have spread uncontrollably in seconds but with several fire extinguishers we were able to put it out quickly with only minor repairs to get it going again.
Compared to last year where we dried everything, this year we didn’t have to dry any grain, which saved a great deal of time and money. We did have to cool it as the grain comes in at a similar temperature to the day temperature, and it can heat up and sweat if it is not cooled.
Considering the dry year, we were very happy with the yield. The specific weight was exceptional and the Hagberg was good, however the protein was generally too low for milling wheat (I know, I did predict in the last article the protein would be high). As this is a nation-wide issue the mills have reduced the specification they require, to keep their supply. They will probably import more wheat from Canada as that usually has very high proteins.
For the last three months we have been very busy with many of the cows and heifers calving. We have been quite tight on staff over the last few months, and this creates a lot of work looking after the calves and starting to milk the heifers (new cows coming into the herd).
The new heifers are not always sure they want to be milked, they can lash out with their feet at the milker who must have their wits about them. Generally, they settle down within a few days and are fine. Thanks to all our team who have put in many hours looking after all the stock.
We have had several visitors to the farm over the last few months. Rob Butler our MP had a tour of the farm, wisely he turned up with wellies. We were able to discuss issues that are affecting farms producing food in a sustainable way.
We also had Princes Risborough Junior Young Farmers for a tour one evening. The club seems to be thriving, but new members are always welcome (you don’t have to be one (farmer) to be one). The juniors are for 10 to – 14 year-olds, the seniors are from 15 to 26 year-olds.
In June we had a fly tipping incident in a field in Smalldean Lane, this was dumped on the edge of one of our fields. This was made possible because somebody had stolen the gate from the field a few weeks beforehand.
Interestingly it was domestic rubbish and in it were several letters all from the same address, in Buckingham. The council official I was with when these were found was delighted and assured me that the resident of the address would be given a visit, hopefully they were.
I wonder if we will see more green fly tipping into fields due to the new council charges. This is always a concern as gardens often have plants that can seriously harm cattle.
The cluster group has been doing reptile surveys, thanks to Lavinia and friends who have been monitoring various sites around the farm throughout the summer. (The photo shows her checking under the mats for reptiles).
am not sure there has been much on our patch, but I do I know some farms have found grass snakes and slow worms, I expect the results will be published soon.
The cluster group is just starting some meetings discussing chalk stream catchments, specifically issues such as field run off and aquifer recharging.
Quite a few of the farms have chalk stream catchments so it should be interesting.