'The main harvest was completed by the end of August. Results were mixed as expected given the spring drought. The extremely dry and warm Spring resulted in some of our wheat being overtaken by a rarely seen wheat disease called Yellow Rust. This disease, which can be sprayed and controlled in a conventional system but is unstoppable in our organic one, literally destroys the plant leaves preventing photosynthesis and therefore growth. It is difficult to quantify the damage ...
In contrast, our barley yields were above expectation. This was all the more surprising (to me at least) given that most of our barley is grown up on the much thinner, chalk and flint 'soils' at Uppark on the Downs. There is something almost mystical in the way that chalk holds moisture that spring barley seems to be able to extract. The barley quality also looks good and should produce a good few barrels of organic beer.
Calving has been underway ... so down at Reeds Farm, Graham, Tracy and Matt are in their busiest period of the year. Cows don't work to the clock so a 24 hour watch has to be kept up and every day there are more small and hungry mouths to feed. We try and calve all our animals outside if conditions allow. It's more natural for the Mother and tends to be healthier in the fresh air. The current good weather is perfect for both stockmen and cow alike!
The wet summer combined with the extremely warm autumn has meant fantastic grass growth. We still have plenty of grazing available and out winter silage stocks are at the optimum level. What a contrast to last year when we were desperately short. Nature is always in control; we merely try and respond to her whims!
The same weather patterns that have kept the grass growing at the dairy have also kept the gardeners busy across the County. The flow of green waste into our composting sites normally tails off significantly during September, but levels remain at a unusually high level.'
This piece was written in mid October, and since John wrote it, we have received some fantastic awards for the farm!
We entered four categories in the NFU competition and came away with 3 firsts and a 3rd!
Our Dairy Herd and Dairy Young Herd both picked up 1st.
Our Spring Barley (mentioned in John's piece) won a 1st also, whilst our Maize collected the 3rd.
We are extremely proud as we have not entered competitions since the farm turned organic, some 12 years ago, as it was thought that we could not compete against the 'conventional boys'. So we are happy to say that we were wrong!
Lets hope next year is as fruitful, probably with a completely different weather patterns!
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