I farm: “A mixed farm in partnership with my father, Nassau. We have a herd of 78 suckler cows and grow a variety of tillage crops including feed wheat, winter and spring barley, winter oilseed rape, peas for Batchelor’s, beans and some Linseed.

Harper Adams: “I came home to farm 15 years ago after completing an Agricultural Science degree in Harper Adams in the UK. This was a great experience for me, I felt the course really brings together the science side and the practical well; I had to do one full year work placement on a farm in Norfolk as part of the degree.”

Family: ”I’m married to Katie and we have three children - Lara (8), Dan (6) and Harry (3).”

Sucklers: “We got into sucklers ten years ago, before this we used to finish store cattle. We have Saler and Saler cross cows on which we use Charolais and Saler bulls. We finish all stock off the farm; the bulls are sold under 16 months of age (a system which has had its challenges this year), the heifers are finished off grass, and we breed all our own female replacements. We fatten all our cull cows also.”

Breeding: “We scanned our cows last week. 78 out of 90 cows and heifers are in calf following a kind spring with plenty of grass, which we were very happy with. The cows have done extremely well and seemed to have enjoyed the good weather! They will start to calve down in the middle of January and finish the first week of March, giving us a seven week calving period.”

Harvest: “We are busy at the moment preparing for harvest which we plan to begin later this week with the Volume Winter Barley all going well. We are looking forward to what we hope will be a reasonable harvest. The continuing drop over the last two months in grain prices is very disappointing and many farmers, including us, will suffer because of it. There may have been an opportunity to lock into slightly higher prices a few months ago, so I hope we do not end up regretting this missed opportunity too much. Here’s hoping it will start to pick up soon for this year’s crops.”

Quotable Quote: “A tight calving interval in the early spring is necessary for a mixed farm like ours as we get very busy in the fields in March, and so a high fertility herd is key.”