farmingGeorge’s Fobbing Farm UpdateRock & Roll FarmingJuly has been an exceptionally busy and varied month. As I type this at the start of August, I am glad that harvest this year is more than two weeks later than it has been the past few years. We are only just ready for it, with trailers washed, disinfected, holes patched with the welder or gaffer tape, and generally given the once over; and stores fully emptied, given a thorough clean, and sprayed by our pest control contractors.Most ears are now ‘necked over’, denoting that harvest is imminent. But with all this wet weather, it is critical for the moisture in the grain to come down to below 14.5% such that it stores well, and doesn’t require costly drying…Here are the grains rubbed out of the wheat earI am chomping at the bit for harvest to start now, but the weather appears to be up to its ‘new normal’ shenanigans (albeit not as bad as other countries around the world). I expect to be cutting by the middle of August. As a little context for the weather we have been contending with this year (based on 600mm average annual rainfall): counting from January, we have already had 100mm more rain than usual, and counting from the farming year starting September 2020, over 200mm more than average. Farming with these conditions is certainly tricky.The start of the month saw me being invited to be interviewed by Will Evans for his ‘Rock and Roll Farming’ podcast. I was delighted to be asked – Will has interviewed some tremendous farmers over his time hosting the podcast, so it feels super to be in such esteemed company. I relished the opportunity to actually tell my pre-farming story, including time at Barclays, attempting to work in film and music; before obviously moving on to speak about the work I am doing to introduce ecology into the heart of my farming model. If you fancy a listen, the episode (entitled ‘A Farm with a lot of Soul’) is available at rockandrollfarming.libsyn.com.I am very proud to now have my own episode on Will’s podcast!Although our combinable crops are yet to be harvested, the same is not true of our hay crop, which is cut on the Essex Wildlife Trust marshes in Fobbing. We are not allowed to cut the grass until 15th July – to allow certain plant species to flower and ground nesting birds to have finished nesting. And with such turbulent weather before that date, we were pleased for a sunny spell enabling us to get on with the hay making.The crop was insanely plentiful this year: so much grass! This grass is organic although not officially certified, so having such a stellar crop was exciting. But it also meant that the grass required turning with our hay tedder to ensure that the hay was dry enough. To say that our tedder is tired is quite the understatement…. My chap, Paul, had welded some reinforcements onto it, which held for a while, but the marshes are so rough that in time it was shaken to bits again.Here is our tedder working to flick the hay swath on the ground over, enabling it to dry out right throughFrustratingly, mid-way through baling up the hay by our contractor (Theobalds from Button Farm), we got a tremendous hail-storm which stopped us in our tracks. I can’t really complain though, since a friend of mine in Cambridge got 90mm of rain in less than an hour on her market garden. However, this was still enough to mess up what would have otherwise been a plain sailing hay season. It also necessitated more welding on the tedder, since the crop needed turning twice more in order to dry it out.Our trusty old Sanderson forklift, 28 years young, and still doing a sterling job (it does less than 50 hours’ work a year)Hay bales on the marshes, ready to be collected, with the sight of the London Gateway Port in the distanceEventually we got everything in bales, and Dad and Paul carted it back from the fields to the safety of a shed in the yard, just before a weekend when the heavens truly opened! I am just a little concerned about the portents of this for the rest of the impending harvest…Carted back to the safety of a shed in the yardJuly has also been another month with many farm walks. I love the opportunity to show people around the farm and explain what I am doing. This month saw visits from the local Crops Board from the National Farmers Union, FWAG (the Farming & Wildlife Advisory Group), the bakers from Flor Bakery in London, plus the journalist and author Marianne Landzettel (whose book I gave to Dad for his birthday the other month). I also conducted a farm walk for which Mum catered a delicious lunch, which was our offering to an ‘auction of promises’, raising money for the RABI (Royal Agricultural Benevolent Institution). Everyone on the walks seemed very engaged and to have enjoy themselves, so hopefully I did my job!The weekend of 24th July saw the first step of the flax harvest in collaboration with Rosie Bristow, with the intention to make linen. Around 40 volunteers descended onto the farm, with some camping, in order to pull up the crop by hand (rod it), and leave it in neat, ordered piles on the floor to enable it to ret naturally over the coming few weeks. In order for the retting process to occur, the crop will also need manually turning. There are spectacular bits of mechanised machinery to do exactly this, but I don’t believe any is in the UK! Simon and Ann Cooper from Flaxland were on hand too to give a demonstration of some of the processing steps.The team of volunteers rodding the flaxFlax laid neatly on the ground to enable it to ret. It is left like this such that it can be easily flipped over to equally ret the opposite side of the crop. This retting process frees the fibres from the stem of the plant, enabling them to be extracted and processedSimon & Ann Cooper from Flaxland put some of the flax into sheafs for them to take home, and ret in a tank of water (rather than on the ground), and then process from there. This tank-retting process is less open to the vagaries of the British weather!Not as much of the crop was harvested as I would have liked, but the rest will not go to waste. Since we don’t have the machinery to rod the crop for its fibre, we will instead run the plants through the combine harvester, which will give seed for potentially growing more flax next year, and perhaps some seed for human consumption too.The flax crop after a couple of weeks of retting: ready to be turned. The colour change is amazing in such a short timeThe end of the month saw the critical task of TB testing thirteen of the new cattle I bought in: the twelve heifers from Northamptonshire, and Kestrel the bull. These animals all came from bovine tuberculosis hotspots, denoted TB1. This means they were tested for TB before leaving their previous holding, and also need to be tested here (post-movement testing) between 60 and 120 days after arriving.Logistically this was a bit of a faff. I didn’t want the heifers to run with the bull this year (they need to grow more before their first calving), and this therefore necessitated the vet coming to do each test separately. We had to set up the cattle crush, race and pen for the heifers and get them checked, before then moving the pen etc to the bull to get him tested. The gates we use are portable and fantastic, but they are on the heavy end of portable!The test itself is split in two, three days apart. On the first day, two patches on the neck are shaved; one injected with bovine tuberculin, and one with avian tuberculin (the avian one acts as a control). The aim of this is to check for any reactors, i.e., where the injection site forms a lump due to a current TB infection. Consequently, on day one, callipers are used and the skin measurements for each animal are logged by the vet for comparison on the follow-up visit.The first day of TB testing the heifers. The crush was used to hold the cow such that Olivia from Westpoint Farm Vets could shave two spots on the neck, and inject the two variants of tuberculinReading the results, three days later – a simpler affair……it was much quicker to read the result, since the cows could all just line up in the crush, and Olivia could walk along and just feel the injection sites. Had she felt any reactions, it would have necessitated using the callipers again to check the size of the lump. But there weren’t so it was all good!The heifers flew through without any issues, and we then took the opportunity to load them on a trailer and take them to the rough grazing marshes where they will spend the summer conservation grazing (low stocking rate over a large area to manage that area as naturally as possible – there is a full explanation over on my Instagram, @farmingGeorge).Conservation grazing on the Essex Wildlife Trust marshesThe cattle are used as a tool to manage the grassland and other plant life, in order for it to be a fantastic habitat for certain ‘target species’ that the wildlife trust are aiming to encourageIt’s super to see my cows in such a natural habitat, grazing the grasses in the open areas, plants in the ditches, browsing the scrub and hedges, and giving themselves mud-masks by ploughing their heads into ant hills!Who wants a facial?I then moved the gates and crush to the older cows and calves with whom the bull was running. We used this opportunity to get the TB test done on the bull, as well as remove the bull from the herd (he couldn’t stay with the herd any longer to ensure he didn’t impregnate any of the young calves!). The bull and two companion cows are now reigning in our meadow where we can keep an eye on them.Olivia back out for Kestrel’s testWith the pen set up for these cows, we also got the vet to take a look at one cow with a minor eye infection, as well as giving ‘Estrumate’ to two of the younger cows that should not have been running with the bull, but are likely to have been served. This will force the cows to abort early, and ensure they don’t get into difficulties calving in the spring (before their pelvis is fully developed).Cow ‘614’ with a minor eye infection, likely ‘New Forest Eye’. It has made this eye slightly cloudy. Fingers crossed that the jab she received will clear her upDad arriving with the trailer: giving me a hand to separate Kestrel and a couple of companion cows from the herdWith the bull separated, I then had to run the herd a half mile to meet up with the younger heifers on the conservation grazing. I strung a small amount of electric fence wire up to guide them, but predominantly called and they followed, which is a very satisfying way of moving stock! I am delighted to have them all safely together on the marshes since this frees up a huge amount of my time which has been spent moving the cows daily. And just in the nick of time with harvest around the corner.Contact details:George Young07792 508 611George@FobbingFarms.co.uk@farmingGeorge