Bycott Farm Diary November 2023

We welcomed a new family to the farm in September. A colony of UK Western Honeybees were delivered by Quince Honey Farm based locally in South Molton. Thirty hives are now situated on the farm. We’ve got one field into a cover crop which contains phacelia, vetch, mustard, radish, crimson clover, sunflowers and borage.

Phacelia and borage are particularly liked by bees. However, whilst sunflowers don’t produce honey, they are a valuable source of nutrition to honey bees who bulk up on the flowers during the end of the season. Our sunflowers were very good, I expect they enjoyed themselves.

Drilling season went well. It’s good to see the farm holding up in such adverse conditions, since the beginning of October we’ve had well over six inches of rain. The work we’ve put into our fields is now paying dividends.

By mid October all crops at two or three leaf stage were treated with a BYDV treatment including trace elements. We excluded two fields of Winter Wheat which we’ve planted with RAGT Grouse, a BYDV-resistant variety.

During late October I was invited to the Bateman factory for an evening. I was on hand to field agronomy questions from a touring party of Devon Federation of Young Farmers’ Clubs. It’s always a pleasure to spend time talking to young people who are keen to become the next custodians of our industry.

A big thank you to Philip Palfrey’s wife Lara who baked special Bateman themed cupcakes for the evening, they were magnificent and disappeared far too soon for my liking!

At the time of writing, it looks like there’s a spell of 7 to 10 days of dry weather approaching, I hope everyone gets the remaining root crops out and cereal crops in.