The Farmers Mart Apr/May 2016 - Issue 45 | Page 49

The Shelby’s

reducing establishment costs
I’ve given us a better chance of
doing okay.
‘I’m using a Mzuri drill. I looked
at every strip till drill available and
in my personal opinion it is the
best around. The key is that it is
not direct drill. I can do granular
fertiliser down the back of the
leg; seed and do slug pellets.
Three operations in one pass
and to pay someone to come
in and do that separately would
cost far more.
“Our land is classed as
Holderness clay but it varies. We
have some lighter land and some
below sea level that is really
dark. We have land that floods
and that’s in an HLS scheme.
The farm is two miles from top to
bottom and is in a ring fence. We
grow wheat, barley, oilseed rape
and vining peas for Bird’s Eye. We
have approximately 400 acres
of winter wheat and have always
gone for barn fillers. Don Stead,
who had the farm before us, told
dad always to go for a big heap

and that’s what we’ve done. Our
first wheats this time are Grafton,
which is still one of the best
varieties for East Yorkshire; Skyfall
and Revelation. We use JB Diego
as second wheat.”
Guy works closely with his
good friends, Billy Hosdell and
Matt Richardson of Agrii who
are respectively his agronomist
and seed consultant. He has
soil maps that have been
created using their Soil Quest
programme so that he knows
which fields are in need of
the muck and slurry provided
through the pigs.
“We save on fertiliser costs by
using the pig slurry and because
we know where it’s needed,
we also make savings by not
putting it where it isn’t needed.
With Billy and Matt, I’m looking
at the agronomic qualities of the
varieties we go for. We still spend
quite a bit on fungicides but
we’re trying to grow varieties that
are more suited to our land such
as Grafton - and also attempting

www.farmers-mart.co.uk Apr/May 2016 49