Published by Farmers Guide, August 2007.

Tractorman John Beare ploughing set-aside in July 2007.

Expanded cropping planned
at Hyde Parker Farms

The Hyde Parker Farms business is owned by Sir Richard Hyde Parker and his family and encompasses six farms with a total of 3,500 acres, most of which straddles the A134 between Long Melford and Alpheton.

One of the farms is let and there is about 500 acres of woodland, but after allowing for farm yards, buildings and roadways, Farm Manager Nick Huxtable has about 2,600 acres to take care of.

Following a major change in farming policy in 2003, when the number of farm staff was reduced and some of the farm machinery was sold, only about 1,500 acres has been cropped in the past three years. The remainder of the land was in set-aside, simply left fallow or rented out for growing stubble turnips and borage. But this year that all changed.

"With the outlook for farming looking much brighter, we have increased the cropping area again," Mr Huxtable told Farmers Guide. "Obviously the fact we could look forward to better prices was a major driver, but the move also meant we could bring Sir Richard's son, William, who has been studying agriculture at the Royal Agricultural College, at Cirencester, onto the farm staff."

The cropping for 2007 includes 1,400 acres of wheat, 400 acres of oilseed rape and 200 acres of sugar beet, which returned to the estate last year after a 17-year break.

"We're only 10 miles from the Bury St Edmunds factory and have the haulage contractor K&R Rush on our doorstep, so we took the plunge and bought 5,000t of sugar beet quota," Mr Huxtable said. "When I attended a recent British Sugar breakfast meeting, I was surprised to find that, tonnage wise, we were in the top 10% of producers."

Growing so much oilseed rape is also a new development for Hyde Parker Farms.

"We're into rape in a big way this year, and there will be even more next year," Mr Huxtable added.

The rotation on the estate now sees first wheat followed by set-aside or fallow, then wheat again followed by oilseed rape or stubble turnips and borage.

"The turnips or borage on their own would not be worthwhile, but combining the two in one season makes sense," Mr Huxtable said.

Selling ahead

About half of the output from Hyde Parker Farms has traditionally been sold ahead on contract, with the rest going into pools with Centaur and Frontier. The balance has shifted towards pools as prices have been increasing, but Mr Huxtable is still happy to lock into guaranteed prices for some of the crops - especially as these tend to be with local buyers resulting in low transport costs.

"Much of our cropping has tended to go for industrial use in recent years," he told Farmers Guide. "A lot of the wheat has gone for starch production at Bury St Edmunds in the past, while Purina at Sudbury is a big wheat buyer for dog food production.

"We're also selling the oilseed rape on an energy contract, and any borage we grow goes for crushing to produce pharmaceutical-grade oil."

As a rough guide, typically 1,000t of wheat will go for dog food, 1,000t for milling and 1,000t for starch production, with the remainder sold in smaller quantities, but this may change as prices find their level.

"By harvest this year, only about 25% of the crop will already have been sold," Mr Huxtable said. "Last year we had one contract that saw 500t of wheat leave the farm at £77/t when spot prices were sitting at £95, but you've got to be philosophical - as long as you're making money at the price you sell it for, you just have to accept it."

Farm power

With three full-time staff - including William Hyde Parker - and two additional regular harvest staff, machinery has been kept to a minimum at Hyde Parker Farms.

A John Deere 8400 tractor is used for most of the cultivation and drilling, backed up by a New Holland TM155, which is on long-term hire from a Cheshire-based company.

"At only £1/horsepower, it's so cheap we can't justify buying another tractor," Mr Huxtable said.

One of the estate's most recent purchases was a 24m John Deere trailed sprayer and a 6800 tractor to pull it, which replaced a Bateman self-propelled unit.

The estate runs its own combine, and has just sold a Lexion 480 and hired in a Lexion 550 for this season.

"It's on a three-year contract, but we have the option of changing to a larger combine if necessary," Mr Huxtable added.

Apart from about 400 acres of lighter Melford Series soils, Hyde Parker farms land is nearly all heavy Hanslope boulder clay.

"The fields here can range from sticky to downright horrible in a wet year," Mr Huxtable said. "As a result, we try to plough as much of it as we can.

"Typically, we'll plough and give it one pass with our Opico rolls with levelling boards. The field is then left to green-up. We'll spray it off if necessary, and then go over it with a Knight Triple Press before drilling with our 6m Simba Freeflow.

"With some of the land, we can get away with just using heavy discs and subsoiling instead of the plough."

The challenging farming climate in recent years has meant that much of the cultivation equipment is now past its best.

"We've seen our repair bills increase significantly and when the better crop prices start feeding through, it will probably be time to start replacing equipment," Mr Huxtable said.

Efficient farming

The primary aim at Hyde Parker Farms is cost-effective production and that means using every tool at its disposal to produce the best yields at the lowest cost.

"We use an agronomist, Jim Woodward, of Farmacy, who takes care of the spraying decisions," Mr Huxtable said. "He advises us on what we need to use and when, and we get on and apply it."

But that's not to say that the estate does not have green credentials as well. It already has land in the Entry Level Stewardship and is now aiming at the Higher Level Stewardship scheme (HLS).

"We're just coming out of the Countryside Stewardship scheme on one farm and we're hoping to get into the HLS from October," Mr Huxtable said. "The scheme will be harder to get into and there will be a lot of work involved, but it will be worthwhile.

"This is quite an old estate and there is a large area of park land with lots of trees around Melford Hall that it makes sense not to farm, while we also have a former railway line running through the estate that is an important environmental feature."

This year has been the toughest that Nick Huxtable has known at Hyde Parker Farms.

"It's the worst season I've ever experienced," he said. "The crops look clean, but they are much thinner than we would like.

"The wet August last year meant we did a lot of damage with trailers, and that was compounded by the dry spring which was the last thing we needed.

"The wheat has corrected itself after showing stress earlier in the year. It has bigger ears than I've seen before, and very little has gone down in the wind and rain.

"With so few of us working on the estate and the need that creates for bigger tackle, the fact we don't use tracklayers means we risk damaging the structure, which is a major issue in clay soils. Thankfully, if the soil does get the chance to dry, it will crack naturally and help repair any damage."

*****

Six generations of ownership

Melford Hall has been the home of the Hyde Parker family since 1786. It was purchased by Sir Harry Parker, the 6th Baronet, who came from an ancient Devon family.

From the Seven Years War in the 1750s until the Second World War, five generations of his relatives fought, and died, at sea for their country.

It was the 11th Baronet, Sir William Hyde Parker (1892-1951), who first started farming in his own right rather than renting out the farms. A hands-on man, he took much of the estate in-hand during the agricultural depression of the 1930s.

When Sir William died in 1951, Lady Ulla Hyde Parker was determined to keep the estate together. She eventually transferred Melford Hall and some of the principle contents, along with 130 acres of park land, to the Treasury in lieu of death duties.

In 1960, the house and land was passed to the National Trust to be preserved on behalf of the nation.

In the 1970s, Sir Richard Hyde Parker, the 12th Baronet, and his wife Jeanie, made their home in the South Wing of Melford Hall, where they still live with their family.

*****

Manager caught the farming bug

Nick Huxtable is not from a farming family, but got interested in agriculture when his parents bought a former farm cottage in Essex and refurbished it as the family home.

"I just got involved in what was going on around me," Mr Huxtable told Farmers Guide, "and would help out after school and during the holidays."

His interest was strong enough to take him to Writtle College, near Chelmsford, when he left school, and from there to his first job on a farm on the Cambridgeshire/Hertfordshire border.

Nick moved to manage the farming business at Hyde Parker Farms in 1997.

Nick Huxtable.