Currently the arable area is 1600 acres.
For the last 3 years 260 acres has been an AHDB Monitor Farm for Saltburn. This has focused on understanding how we are to improve our soils, grass weed control specifically sterile brome, varied rotations and their impact on profitability, moving from minimum tillage to direct drilling and reducing fixed costs to improve overall farm profitability.
The remaining 1340 acres has been in a 3-year rotation of winter barley, oilseed rape and winter wheat established using minimum tillage methods. We have in recent years seen an increase in club root in the oilseed rape crops, sterile brome continues to prosper despite our efforts especially in winter barley. To reduce both we are moving to a 5-year rotation of winter barley, oilseed rape, winter wheat, winter beans and winter wheat. This will hopefully over time reduce the incidence of club root aided by using resistant varieties, help with the control of sterile brome by having a reduced winter barley area and increase profitability by increasing the first wheat area.
The aim moving forward is to improve the soil and the imbalances we are finding through more detailed analysis and moving towards direct drilling.