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My apologies for not writing my farming notes last month – I was pretty busy with my A Level exams!

Arable

Harvest is fast approaching all the machinery has been cleaned, serviced and repaired to get ready for it. The wheat and barley have had their final fungicide spray and the oilseed rape has been sprayed with ‘Podstick’ to reduce the amount of seed lost from the pods. The OSR will be sprayed with a desiccant in 2-3 weeks to kill it so it can dry out before harvest.

Cattle

We have been selling finished cattle at both Colchester and Newark livestock markets. The beef price is down compared to recent years, consequently we are marketing beef privately, so if anyone is interested in buying freezer packs of beef born and reared in the parish please visit www.kerseylivestock.co.uk/beef for more information.

Shows

The Hadleigh show went very well, with good results for both cattle and sheep. However, we did not get on at the Suffolk Show as well as we would have liked, only managing a scattering of seconds and thirds. We have been working hard to prepare for the Norfolk show and are also taking some cattle to the National Livestock Event at the NEC in Birmingham.

Silage

This year the weather has been perfect for grass production so we have lots of good grass ready for the drier summer. We have also made 400 bales of silage, I have made a video below showing the moving of the bales 

Sheep

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All the sheep have now been sheared and the lambs weaned. The fodder rape that we covered in fleece in April has come up very well and we have been allowing the lambs to graze on sections of it. The fleece kept flea beetles, rabbits and pigeons off the crop and has allowed very strong growth.

 


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