The Farmers Mart Apr-May 2020 - Issue 68 | Page 47

OAK HOUSE FARM 47 • APR/MAY 2020 Proud to be associated with Mike Powley and wish him continued success. Setting Standards in Beef Europe’s largest privately-owned beef processor T. [phone] F. [phone] www.abpfoodgroup.com Murton Lane, Murton, York YO19 5GH Your local contacts Michael Atkinson: 07850 660 121 Helen Walton: 07587 774308 Email. [email protected] Large agricultural buildings • Industrial units Whole farms to small agricultural extensions John has been building agricultural buildings since 1994 following many years in agriculture on the family farm. John’s wealth of experience means he can design, plan and build from the ground up any size or type of agricultural building you require. “Everyone at John Walker Farm Buildings sends best wishes to Mike and Sheena and all the family at Oak House Farm” T: 01609 883447 E: [email protected] ‘The perfect soil structure is permanent pasture, but we grow arable crops also. If you put grass into an arable field for three years you get halfway, with a much better structured soil. Our rotation at the moment is three years of red clover, two wheats, then a mixed species cover crop into spring beans, then two wheats and a barley. That’s an 8-year rotation with four of the eight being legumes. Red clover and spring beans don’t get any fertiliser so you’re able to cut those input costs and we are improving soil quality.’ ‘Soil structure improves and at the end of three years of grass you can round it off and drill the wheat straight in with no cultivations, quickly and easily in one pass. What we see now is soil biology, earthworms and the like, gathering up the dead grass, pulling it under the ground that is then feeding the soil and everything in it.’ Holly Farm, Kirby Sigston, Northallerton, North Yorkshire, DL6 3TB ‘Scientists say there are more individ- ual organisms in a teaspoon of soil than there are people on earth, so there are an awful lot of things in there that we don’t fully understand, but we’re getting that soil biology buzzing.’ Oak House Farm is now ASDA’s training and educational farm for beef in the UK. ‘They are looking at sustainable farming at all times and with the government looking at a new farm payment tied in with environmental matters our no till, carbon sequestration ticks all the boxes. I can now drill my soil in an hour and a half where previously it would have taken me all day, at a tenth of the cost, yields are holding up and the soil is healthier.’ Red clover silage is a big part of Mike and Tom’s herd’s diet. ‘We want it because it is high in protein and that can be an expensive part of a cow’s diet. We’re trying to grow a com- plete diet rather than simply chucking everything in a feeder, so we’ve the red clover and high sugar ryegrass grown together in a mixed sward. When the red clover grows it fixes the nitrogen and the ryegrass roots pick that up as fertiliser. The combination of the two brings about the same analysis of bagged feed from a mill, leaving us just minerals and a little bit of molasses to buy-in. It means we are pretty much self-sufficient, saving costs and producing better results.’