Hereford Monitor Farm (2020-2024)

Name:

Adam Lewis, Jack Hopkins, Martin Carr and Rob Beaumont

Location:

North Herefordshire

Farm sectors:

Cereals & Oilseeds

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About Hereford Monitor Farm (2020-2024)

The current Hereford Monitor Farm joined the Farm Excellence Programme in 2020
The first Hereford Monitor Farm was first established in 2014
Consists of four separate farms in north Herefordshire
Total farm area: 851 ha consisting of combinable crops alongside beef, sheep, soft fruit and contracting

Having been involved in the Hereford Monitor Farm group since its inception in 2014, Adam Lewis, Jack Hopkins, Martin Carr and Rob Beaumont have joined forces to run the new Hereford Monitor Farm together. Consisting of around 851ha of land, the four farms represent Herefordshire's diverse farming landscape with the farms having a mix of combinable crops alongside beef, sheep, soft fruit and contracting. The soil types across the four farms range from heavy clays to light sand loams with a variety of cultivation systems within the group, including min-till, strip-till and ploughing.

Adam, Jack, Martin and Rob feel that the anticipated challenges agriculture will face over the next three years provide the perfect opportunity to cover the Hereford Monitor Farm role together. They believe that opening their doors and having their business and management decisions scrutinised is a great opportunity to strengthen their farms for the future.

Hereford Monitor Farm will run from 2020–2024.

For information about past meetings and events, click '+ See more'.

Past meetings and updates

Sustainability and resilience in a volatile marketplace – 12 January 2023

In the final meeting of the 2022/23 winter season, our Hereford monitor farmers worked with Jeremy Higgs (ODA UK Ltd) to create a grain marketing action plan to acheive better returns. The second half of the meeting was spent discussing the mentality behind making decisions across arable businesses with Becky Miles from REAL success.

Keep up to date with current cereals and oilseeds market news, including daily updates, here.

Understanding and protecting against arable diseases – 8 December 2022

Aoife O'Driscoll (NIAB) and independent agronomist Bryce Rham engaged in a lively debate regarding fungicide choices and timings, disease strains and resistance to chemistry.

Bryce detailed the way in which he utilises the AHDB Recommended lists for cereals and oilseeds. You can find information to inform your fungicide decisions, here: Fungicide performance in cereals and oilseed rape.

Cover crops: Do you get out what you put in? – 4 November 2022

In the first meeting of the 2022/23 winter season, Tim Stephens, catchment advisor for Wessex Water, talked about his experience working with farmers on water quality improvement projects across Dorset.

John Martin ('Soil Farmer of the Year' runner-up 2020) farms in an area which is highly protected for water quality. He detailed the cover crops he grows to reduce nitrogen usage and improve soils.

Take a look at the latest results from the Cover crops and water quality trials at Strategic Cereal Farm South. Strategic Cereal Farm East results can be found here.

Digging up the dirt on soil health – 03 March 2022

Liz Stockdale (NIAB) gave a demonstration of how to use the newly developed AHDB Soil Health Scorecard and talked through the findings of the soil assessments which took place at the Hereford Monitor Farms farm during the autumn of 2021.

Karl Ritz (University of Nottingham) was also in attendance, talking to the group about crop rooting and it's relationship with soil health.

Wheat growing of the future – 16 February 2022

John Pawsey (Shimpling Park Farms), gave an overview of his successful organic farming system. More specifically John touched on how he implements grass leys, sheep and cropping in the rotation to boost fertility and manage nutrients.

Essex farmer Simon Cowell also spoke at this meeting, explaining how he's reduced inputs across his arable farm.

Talking tackle: Machinery systems, processes and ownership structures – 13 January 2022

Over the winter season a Labour & Machinery Review was conducted at the Hereford Monitor Farms.

In this meeting, AHDB's Technical KE Manager Harry Henderson and Rob Meadley (Brown & Co.) analyse the results and the four hosts talked about what they learnt from their reviews.

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