Soil Solutions

Henry Hurrell from Newton Farms near Cambridge is a successful farmer, who farms over 3000 acres, but has had to diversify and modify his farming methods to keep up with the current agricultural climate. Henry is a landowner, contractor and farms under a share partnership agreement. Henry has 6 clients who are situated around the Newton Area, plus two other farms of his own, one at Swaffham Prior near Newmarket, and one at Stretham, near Ely.

Consequently Henry has to keep a keen eye on logistics to keep his costs down. Henry grows Wheat, Malting Barley, Peas, Beans, Oilseed Rape, Sugar Beet and Mushrooms. Henry also has a suckler herd of 70 cattle. He has 8 members of staff as well as himself. This includes his arable farm manager James, 3 full-time tractor drivers, one seasonal worker, one person responsible for the cattle, one person responsible for the mushroom farm (plus seasonal pickers) and one office administrator who works part time. Henry’s three farms have three different soil types, so cropping for each farm is very different.


SOIL FOCUS

Newton - South Cambs
Soil Type Cropping
Chalk Cereals
Gravel Cereals

Swaffham Prior - Nr Newmarket
Soil Type Cropping
Loam Clay Sugar beet/Cereals
Peat Let for Potatoes

Stretham - Nr Ely
Soil Type Cropping
Clay Sugar beet/Cereals
Peat Let For Potatoes

Henry has diversified throughout the farm in order to use his resources efficiently. Firstly, he built industrial units for letting, which cost over half a million pounds. These converted barns are used for office units and honey processing. At present one unit is sitting empty, so in the short term he is making a significant loss…… nothing is plain sailing! Henry was finding it increasingly difficult to make money from his larger suckler herd. So, he decided to invest in a mushroom unit, where he is seeing a small return. The mushrooms are mostly sold to Bedford farms, and he uses the compost afterwards to incorporate into his lighter soils for soil conditioning. “Henry looked into nutri-bio as a cost effective solution to improve soil structure” The soil at Swaffham Prior is lacking soil structure and only has moderate amounts of cattle manure and mushroom compost.

Henry looked into nutri-bio as a cost effective solution to improve this. With a selection of nutrients and potential to increase yields, Henry calculated that he could save money on his fertiliser inputs.

Their first application of nutri-bio was spread before sugar beet in January 2004. nutri-bio releases a small amount of nitrogen in the first stages of growth, meaning the farmer need not apply any or so much bagged fertiliser at this stage, not only saving on nitrogen but nitrogen inputs too. The organic matter in nutri-bio is also helpful to sugar beet in the summer months as it helps to prevent sugar beet
suffering from drought. Next in the rotation is likely to be winter wheat and possibly a second winter wheat. Interestingly nutri-bio has also shown signs of reducing the risk of take-all. Newton farms are under the arable stewardship scheme, soon to become the countryside scheme. This covers the farms at Newton, including beetle banks, wild bird mixtures and field margins linked from wood to wood.

Henry has found that diversification, the stewardship scheme and reducing his inputs is increasingly important. The Cap Reform may mean that some share partnership agreements may become less profitable due to the change in area payments from production.