Cropping is divided into feedstock for the AD plant and conventional combinable crops.

Forage rye, triticale, sugar/fodder beet and silage grass are all grown for feeding the AD plant, while OSR, Winter/Spring wheat, Winter/Spring Oats are all grown for conventional cereal harvest.

The cropping strategy includes block cropping where possible to make our large machinery more efficient

Each block of fields is treated as one when spraying or applying fertiliser, not only for ease of management but more importantly, each block can easily be treated in one day. Thus, critical growth stage timings are not missed, and harvest operations are greatly improved with the resultant reduction in lengthy inter-field movements.

Crop Markets

Winter & Spring Wheat

Our wheat is grown for distilling or animal feed. Winter Varieties such as Extase, Champion, Colosseum Sundance and Typhoon are selected for their yield potential and disease resistance. Varieties with higher Septoria resistance are preferred to help reduce the reliance on chemical control.

Spring Wheat is grown following winter harvested Sugar Beet.

Winter Oil Seed Rape

Chrome is grown because of its resistance to Clubroot.

Oilseed Rape is grown largely as an early harvested cereal break crop allowing entry for Winter Wheat and also gives the opportunity to control grass weeds and rye volunteers.

Spring & Winter Oats

We concentrate on growing specific varieties suitable for Quaker Oats. Conway & Canyon are grown on contract for Oat Co Scotland and supplied through this farmer lead growing group to Pepsi Co, delivered into their Fife milling plant. It is marketed as Quakers and Scots Porridge Oats.

Forage Rye

Cereal rye is grown to be whole-crop harvested by the estates own forage harvester, this is clamped to be fed to the AD plant throughout the winter.

Arable Silage

Triticale/Clover mix is grown each spring following April & May harvested sugar Beet, this would often be too late for a conventional Spring combinable crop so this short growing season crop allows the field to be utilised over the Summer as the crop can be harvested into the silage clamps and then followed with Wheat in the Autumn.

Sugar/Fodder Beet

Beet is grown as an excellent source of energy for the AD Plant. All beet is harvested by our own team, then washed & chopped on site before being fed to the AD Plant from October through until May.

Silage Grass

4 cuts of silage are taken each year as feedstock for the AD Plant, Grass leys are put down for two years as part of the arable rotation allowing the field to get a break from cereals and build up nutrients. Where possible the Nitrogen required is provided through liquid digestate applications.