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was a feeling they wouldn ’ t be any good . Instead we built a beef shed and now keep everything – bulls and heifers – and take them all the way through . We have Ayrshires , Black & Whites , Angus X and Belgian Blue X . We split them into dairy replacements and beef , feeding those going to beef on a barley beef system . Everything tends to go at between 12-16 months to ABP .’
Anthony describes his soil as heavy clay . His acreage across to the two sites at Keld Knowle and Great Edstone is half arable and half grass .
‘ I use Keld Knowle as an arable farm that has grass on it , which gives me more straw and more forage . I usually have around 230 acres of arable crops across the two farms with heat generally making up two-thirds of the cropping . I grow second , third and some continuous wheats . I have one field here at Keld Knowle that had its 26th consecutive wheat this year . Why would you grow anything else if you can do that ?’
‘ My wheat normally averages around 3 to 3.5 tonnes per acre . The best I ’ ve ever done was with the Crusoe variety as a third wheat after grass back in the golden year of 2015 where we averaged
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5 tonnes and it gave masses of straw as well as yield . We had Crusoe , Illustrious and Zyatt this harvest . It was a difficult time this year as anyone knows because of last year ’ s problems with the weather and crop establishment .’
‘ I put the drill on last September and didn ’ t take it off my tractor until mid- April on the basis that any time it dried up enough I attempted to drill another acre or two . I drilled some fields three times and ended up with winter barley , spring barley and spring wheat this year . I ’ m on a straw based system , so I need as much straw as possible to go back through the system . I ’ ve increased my barley , which seems to be able to compete with the blackgrass . My winter barley this year was Orwell and the spring barley was Planet . We grew 70 acres of barley and 20 acres of beans , the rest was wheat . I gave up with oilseed rape many years ago .’
Karen and Anthony were brought together by good friend Graham Bulmer .
‘ I was 30 at the time and according to Karen I was ‘ pretty well dusty on the top shelf ’. Graham told me ‘ those wild Johnson girls are having a party ’ and
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that ’ s how we started . We now have three teenage children – Charles , Katy and Emma .’
Karen ’ s a farmer ’ s daughter who spent a lot of her youth travelling , either backpacking or on her Honda 500 motorcycle .
‘ I worked for my dad on his pig farm and then studied pigs at college before working on farms in Lincolnshire and North Yorkshire and then for Askham Bryan College checking on students on work placements . I started working for National Milk Records five years ago .’
‘ We are now expanding the caravan site that Anthony ’ s mother started more than 40 years ago . It had always been a 5-van site until July this year . We ’ re now up to 15 and have built a new shower and toilet block . This year ’ s lockdown and Covid-19 restrictions have ensured more people stay in the UK and we ’ ve been full or nearly full since we upped our numbers . It has given us a good start . We received a LEADER grant that helped with the extra pitches , electrics , septic tank and heating system in the new block . Ours is an informal site with no overcrowding .’
‘ We also have two static holiday homes we ’ ve had for a long time , and when we
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are not in a pandemic I also run B & B in the farmhouse .’
‘ This is a working farm , it ’ s not three hens and a pet sheep , and that ’ s something I stress as a main marketing point because then people who come can ’ t complain when they hear cows mooing at 3am . Our visitors love watching the cows and their most common comment is ‘ aren ’ t they big !’
One of the Scalings ’ favourite family days out is attending a local show , either Ryedale , Rosedale or Farndale .
‘ We choose three calves and at last year ’ s Ryedale Show the girls won with the best Ayrshire and as best handler .’
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