The Farmers Mart Jun/Jul 2015 - Issue 40 | Page 30

Grange Farm NORTHFIELD AGRICULTURAL SERVICES LTD Halsham, Hull, East Riding of Yorkshire, HU12 0BT Tel [phone] - Fax [phone] www.northfieldagric.co.uk Richard Cross 07860 429947 | George Cross 07860 429934 Rob Law 07740 781688 Email [email protected] Email [email protected] For All your Farm Machinery Sales, Parts & Service Requirements in East Yorkshire PLEASED TO SUPPLY & SUPPORT M MEADLEY & SONS BRADSHAW’S FLOUR MILL DRIFFIELD Buyers of local wheat for milling into a range of flours for customers nationwide. We are delighted to be working with the Meadley Family. Tel: [phone] Jun/Jul 2015 www.farmers-mart.co.uk “We want to start with the right building blocks. I’m sure eventually we will go fully towards precision farming as everybody will, but it has to be cost-effective for farms of our size as well as those even smaller. Clearly, the costs attached will come down but what we need to make a decision on is the most appropriate thing to start with. As the HGCA is an independent organisation and so not looking to sell us anything, I thought becoming a monitor farm was a better route to find the answer than asking a commercial company which will of course, primarily look to selling their own wares. AN OPEN & HONEST DEBATE “Being a monitor farm hasn’t cost us anything apart from our time and we’ve already learned quite a bit,” he added. “Everyone involved talks to each other about the best way forward, making it an honest and open debate between the participating farmers” ‘Everyone involved talks to each other about the best way forward, making it an honest and open debate between participating farmers’ Phil and Adrian are constantly looking at what they can do to bring about greater benefits to their arable operation, regardless of whether they go down the precision farming route or not. They already weigh the grain on their Claas Lexion 630 combine by use of a magic eye looking across a good grain elevator and assessing the amount on each elevator as it goes up into the tank. This gives them an indication of their tonnage per acre. It effectively tells them the difference in yield between each variety and allows them to accurately assess the tonnage going into store. Phil said: “We realise that the yield from one variety to another also depends on the fields and the land and we have quite a bit of variety from one field to another. That’s where we believe precision fa