HAVING just returned from a great holiday, touring in Alaska, the Canadian Rockies and Nova Scotia, I am just catching up on what has been happening here on Manor Farm.

Although we saw some spectacular scenery and met many friendly people, we do not often appreciate what we have on our doorstep, here in the UK. The diversity of landscapes, wildlife and farming operations within such a small area seems to become more apparent when travelling through huge expanses of wilderness.

The weather since we arrived home has been somewhat mixed, beginning with a windy, but warm day followed by torrential rain and a dip in temperature of about 12C. There was then a gradual improvement over the week with a most glorious sunny day to finish. I understand that the recent rain has been welcome with seeds able to germinate properly, giving all the fields the look of fresh green carpets.

As we now have an increased number of livestock on the farm, we have planted some extra grass. These are short-term leys consisting of Italian and perennial ryegrasses, which should produce an abundance of quality grass for the next two years, as long as we do not experience a drought, such as we had this year. At the moment all is looking good, with the likelihood that these fields will be grazed before winter arrives.

The area of cereals planted this autumn has been reduced, consisting mainly of winter wheat and two fields of winter barley. We are growing two varieties of wheat, one is called Siskin (which we grew last year) and the other Graham.

Graham is a high yielding feed wheat, which was added to the AHDB (Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board) recommended list in 2016. It has excellent disease resistance, is early maturing and thrives on all soil types, growing particularly well in the west.

One of our fields has been planted with forage rape. This will boost the amount of forage available to feed cattle or sheep resident on Manor Farm. Forage rape (a brassica) is a fast-growing catch crop with a flexible sewing period. It matures three months after planting producing a highly digestible, high-protein feed. Forage rape can also be ploughed back into the soil as a green manure.

Red clover is being grown on another field as part of 'greening'. Greening was introduced with the reform of the CAP (Common Agriculture Policy) and it is hoped will improve the environmental performance of farming, being mandatory for all applicants to the BPS (Basic Payment Scheme). This red clover will be used to provide extra food for Kevin's sheep.

At the end of the week the weather was perfect for spraying a herbicide onto the remainder of our cereal crops, dry and still, so Ian soon got the job done.

The milking cows on Manor Farm have just had their feed ration altered slightly following the testing of silage samples taken from the grass and maize silage clamps. The protein in the diet was found to be a little low, so the percentage of grass to maize silage in the ration has been increased.This will also help the maize silage to last longer, as the yield was down this year due to the dry weather. Our cows' milk usually has a butterfat content near four per cent, but with a high portion of recently calved cows in the herd the current butterfat is 4.5 per cent.

Sheep work at the moment mainly involves daily checking of all the groups of 80 ewes, each with a ram. Some of the lighter ewes are being fed some field beans, grown by Kevin on his farm. This will hopefully put some condition on them. The beans yielded poorly this year due to the weather, but Kevin still got half a tonne/acre, which is a useful feed source whilst fodder is short on many farms.

On Sunday Kevin and his parents have kindly agreed to host the Chippenham YFC ploughing match, on Chivellins Farm. All visitors are welcome to see the competitors turning the furrows with modern and vintage machinery.