Our contracting team spent twelve days in late September and early October drilling winter wheat for four neighbouring farms. Six hundred and forty acres went in, most of it into dry ground.
Contracting started here in 1994, when we bought a bigger drill than we needed and a neighbour asked to borrow it. Thirty years later we work for thirty-eight farms between Devizes and Andover.
Getting the timing right
Drilling date matters. Too early and the crop grows too fast and picks up disease; too late and the soil turns cold and wet. We aim for the first three weeks of October on the chalk, and earlier on the heavier ground in the vale.
Most of the farms we work for are family farms like ours, and some have been customers for twenty years. We know their fields, their gateways and which lanes our drill can get down, which saves everyone time when the weather window is short.
“Dev’s rule: if the soil sticks to your boots, park the drill and put the kettle on.”
This year the ground was dry, which made for good working but slow germination. We drilled slightly deeper to reach moisture and rolled behind the drill to keep the seed in contact with the soil.
Drilling winter wheat on a neighbour’s farm near Pewsey.
Booking contracting work
Dev Patel leads the team, with two operators and our six-metre drill, two tractors and a self-propelled sprayer. We book jobs in the order they come in, weather permitting, and we tell you honestly if we cannot get to you in time.
If you would like drilling, spraying, baling or hedge-cutting next season, ring the farm office with your acreage and the rough dates you have in mind. We will give you a price per acre or per hour, and we will turn up when we say we will.
Between jobs the drill is cleaned and the seed rate checked on every new farm, because different varieties and seed sizes need different settings. A few minutes with the calibration tray saves a field of thin or crowded wheat.
