A Seed Growers Diary
By Richard Monk
AF Monk (Rookley) Ltd have been growing seed crops on behalf of United Oilseeds for the past 13 years, and have been trading commercial crops with United Oilseeds since the company's early years in the 1970s.
In this ‘Diary of a Seed Grower', Richard Monk, farm director, will be providing a monthly insight into how this year's seed crop is progressing and how it is being managed to achieve the best possible seed quality.
Richard Monk of AF Monk (Rookley) Ltd.
Introduction to AF Monk (Rookley) Ltd.
Rookley Farm is situated near Stockbridge in Hampshire and extends to a total of 1,490 acres (603 hectares). Of this, 1,225 acres (496ha) is owned by AF Monk Ltd, and 265 acres (107.3ha) is farmed on an Agricultural Holdings Act tenancy. The land varies from thin puffy chalk to light loam with flints over chalk and a few clay caps. Cold weather can sometimes be a problem for us - lots of frost on our chalk soil causes quite a lot of frost heave, but that is a problem that many farmers have to contend with.
In September 2000, we undertook a contract farming agreement on an adjoining 700 acres (283ha), where we predominantly grow commercial crops of rape and cereals. A further 600 acres (243ha) in two blocks were added four years ago, to make an overall combinable acreage of almost 2,800 acres (1,133 ha).
The policy on the Rookley block is for all the arable acreage to be grown under a seed contract, covering all types of combinable crops, with the intention that production from every acre goes through our own cleaning plant to produce certified, and where necessary, dressed seed ready for sale.
In 2002/03 a new 40t/hour dryer was installed along with 20 new holding bins. This equipment was purchased to handle our own harvest but is also used to dry some of the contract farmed crops. It is also available for use by other farmers, and grain merchants who need access to additional drying, cleaning and storage facilities.
In 2005 we updated our on-site seed treatment and packing equipment to accommodate bag sizes ranging from 10 to 1,000kgs. This year we have replaced the sieve boats in the main cleaner.
Accreditation
We are registered to Assured Combinable Crops Standards (ACCS) and are founder members of the British Association of Seed Producers. We have also hosted NIAB southern region recommended list winter wheat trials for more than 10 years, and more recently, we have become involved in pea and spring barley trials.
In 1996 an officially licensed seed testing laboratory was built on site. This facility is managed by a fully qualified seed analyst/crop inspector. As such, we have the necessary facilities to carry out all types of advisory and statutory seed testing as well as field crop inspecting.
Cropping 2009
This year's cropping programme includes:
|
Crop type |
Total area (ha) |
|
Seed crop |
962.8 |
|
Commercial crop |
207.1 |
Overall we grow 10 different crop types and this involves 26 different varieties. We don't grow a huge amount of rape, generally because we need to preserve our fields for seed rape - ideally there should be a 10 year gap between rape crops to ensure purity. We therefore use plenty of other break crops such as peas, linseed, poppies and herbage seed.
See here for the first instalment