Summer’s golden acres hit by long winter

Fields of gold adorn Yorkshire’s countryside as oilseed rape once again punctuates the horizon offering a bright alternative to the pastel shades of wheat and barley.

To many that’s all this crop is, but in just 40 years it has become one of the biggest crops in the UK and is used in margarine, cooking oil, biodiesel and lubricants for industry. For many farmers it is the ultimate break crop.

This past year has been a trying time for all arable farmers and as a consequence this year’s oilseed rape harvest is three weeks behind. It is already anticipated that losses incurred last autumn will reduce the UK harvest by 20 per cent and yield is expected to suffer as a result of poor weather not just after plantation but also due to an inclement April and May.

Richard Bramley farms at Manor Farm, Kelfield, where his 550 acres includes up to seven different crops from wheat, barley, oilseed rape, flax, potatoes, sugar beet and hemp.

Last year’s floods in September cost him his sugar beet and industrial hemp that he had been due to harvest plus 50 acres of oilseed rape that he had planted just weeks prior at the end of August.

Only one field of 28 acres remains. In Richard’s case what he has left looks good but it is only 40 per cent of what he originally intended.

“We’ve not had an issue with the oilseed rape we have here over at Riccall as this ground is sandy loam and doesn’t flood. The stronger warp land at Kelfield and between there and Cawood was where we lost out.”

Trying to quantify the actual financial loss is tricky but the loss of seed and the work that was put in on the 50 acres would be around £100/acre. That’s without taking into account how much revenue the crop would have sold for.

Oilseed rape has been trading around the £350-£380/tonne in recent months. Understandably, given the substantial loss of crop, Richard isn’t looking at the market prices as readily as he may have done.

Fortunately Richard’s wider spread of crop growing meant that he was able to re-sow some of the fields that had been wiped out of oilseed rape. The fields nearer to Manor Farm now have fibre flax and sugar beet and the fields are recovering well albeit a little slowly.

“Growing the number of crops we do allows me to spread the risk, my only minor concern with the oilseed rape crop now is that it is shorter and later, but it still has reasonable potential. We are fairly lucky in that we grow a lot of break crops, but on a wholly combinable crop farm oilseed rape is possibly their only option.”

Richard is growing the oilseed rape variety Compass for its third season and he uses an insecticide product to protect the seedling called Neonicotinoid. The product has been used industry-wide but there are calls to ban it as laboratory tests seem to have shown that it harms bees by affecting their memory.

“It has been used on oilseed rape seeds to protect the seedling from insect attack underground for the first two weeks of the plant’s life when it is at its most vulnerable.

“We have been using it for five years and during that time we haven’t had to use an insecticide overspray once the crop is established.

“From December of this year there is a ban, or at least a moratorium on the use of Neonicotinoid. I am concerned that the unintended consequence of losing this product as a seed dressing might work against what those who are imposing the ban are really trying to do as we will have to go back to using the insecticide overspray.”

Richard wears various farming organisation hats. He has been the NFU vice chairman of the North East Regional Crops Board for the past seven years; he also sits on the Crops Board of the Red Tractor organisation that promotes better farming; and he is also chair of the East Riding local liaison group and regional strategic group of the Campaign for the Farmed Environment.

“The CFE was born out of the threat of compulsory set aside. At the time the industry took the view that it would be better to encourage farmers how to manage areas better in a voluntary fashion. Manor Farm is now a beacon farm in the CFE. Farming and the environment are not purely black and white.”

While Richard’s oilseed rape crop is vastly reduced this year he is hopeful that others will perform well. His potatoes are now set up with trickle irrigation throughout the fields where he grows 66 acres of the crisping variety Saturna.

“It takes a good deal of work setting it up and tidying away at the end of the season but the trickle irrigation stations in the field monitor the moisture and rainfall. Once it is set up all I have to do is look at the information it is giving me, monitor the data and using my phone I can turn the water on. When I want it to stop I can then phone it again. In the meantime it looks after itself.

“It ensures the plant gets the water when it needs it.

“Sugar beet is the real problem at present. It is well behind. We sowed it at the end of March and by now we would expect the plant to be meeting across the rows. The key to good yield is crop canopy and it is nowhere near the spread we would like.”

“Last year we lost all our sugar beet to flooding, we had a very good year in 2011, but the year before that we lost a third to frost.

“That means there is a big concern over the viability of growing it. The jury is out at the moment, but I have stuck with it since the York factory closed in 2007.

“We only produce half of what the UK needs so I’m keeping the faith at present and suits our land.”

Family farm and holiday homes

Richard’s grandfather came to Kelfield in 1935. He is now the third generation, following on from his father.

In recent times Richard’s wife Brigita has been responsible for the excellent Dovecote Barns holiday accommodation next door to the farm utilising old farm buildings.

Dovecote Barns was awarded Visit England’s Self Catering Cottages of the Year 2011/2012 and includes three self-contained cottages.

Unfortunately you won’t see any fields of gold from there this year!