This is Part Two of a pair of DVDs that together constitute the most detailed programmes ever released about the farming year on a large arable enterprise. We say ‘enterprise’ because Loose Hall Farm Ltd runs to 3,600 acres on eight farms stretching over eight miles.
The manager is Kevin Easey who for 48 years has worked the heavy clay soils in the heart of Suffolk. In 2012 – the year of filming – his main crops were winter wheat, winter and spring barley, oilseed rape and sugar beet. A few beef cattle were also kept.
August–September starts with the wheat harvest, close on the heels of which are cultivations for next year’s crops. The new rape crop is already coming through – and so are the slugs. After a very variable summer the wheat harvest finally ends in early September and a week later Kevin starts drilling next year’s cereals. Drilling, fertilising and spraying are the orders of the day until beet lifting from the end of October, during what turned out to be one of the wettest autumns for a hundred years.
Chris Lockwood’s clear script describes over 160 sequences during the course of the pair of programmes which together run for four hours and include interviews with Kevin Easey.
Many ancillary activities are on view including truck-loading, crop-drying, drilling maize for game cover, hedge-cutting, ditching and demonstrations of new machinery. Enthusiasts will appreciate the wide variety of different tractors and equipment seen at work.
Suffolk-based Chris Lockwood, a freelance agricultural journalist, is the author of three books and creator of a growing list of programmes on farming and farm machinery.
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