By Jack Bosworth, Director, FJ Bosworth & Sons. Published 6 August 2024.
I hope everyone is well.
We have been pushing on with harvest since my last piece, so this is going to be an all-arable update. First, a massive thank you to everyone involved for the hours they have put in so far. We have certainly done a few.
Yields so far
Harvest started for us on 14 July. Here is where we are up to:
| Crop | Yield (t/ha) | Comparison |
|---|---|---|
| Winter barley | 9.3 | A tonne down on last year |
| Winter OSR | 3.7 | — |
| First wheat after OSR | 10.2 | Pleasing given slug pressure |
| Wheat after spring barley | 8.9 | The real disappointment |
| Continuous wheat (7th year, 12 ha) | 8.43 | Pleasantly surprising |
There are about 100 hectares to go, split pretty much 50/50 between second wheats and spring barley. The wheat figure includes some late-drilled that is not yet fit, so I imagine we may have to sit patiently for a few days.
Winter barley and what is happening next
That land is now waiting for volunteers to be killed off, before applying slurry and then drilling Oilseed Rape (OSR).
Some of it is also going to have a companion crop of buckwheat this year, as a trial to see if it helps aid establishment. Our biggest establishment challenges with OSR come from cabbage stem flea beetle and pigeons. Both are extremely hard to design around. Improving early establishment by any means available is worth trying.
Dare I say it, some rain will also be required before we get the OSR in.
OSR and the cultivation plan
Winter OSR yielded 3.7 t/ha. The land has already been cultivated with the aim of getting next year’s seedbed underway at the earliest opportunity. We have moved it with our Sumo Trio, and will run through it with the press following the next rain.
Wheat after OSR: a small relief
Our first wheat after OSR averaged 10.2 t/ha. I would have taken that figure earlier in the season, when we were struggling with the slug population soon after emergence. The crop came back strongly from a tough start, which is its own quiet validation of the establishment work that went in.
Wheat after spring barley: the disappointment
The real disappointment so far has been wheat after spring barley, averaging 8.9 t/ha.
Two findings from inside that disappointment, though, that are worth holding onto for next year:
- The cover-crop trial area that we put in before spring barley was the worst-yielding area of spring barley last year. This year, it was the best-yielding area of wheat following spring barley. That tells us something about long-cycle benefit from cover cropping that a one-year view of the same field would have missed entirely.
- The area that had two organic manure applications was at least 0.7 t/ha better off than the area that had one, despite both receiving the same total nitrogen. The N was just applied in different forms.
Both findings make a useful argument for keeping the long view in arable rotations, and for valuing slurry and FYM beyond their headline nitrogen number.
Continuous wheat: the genuinely pleasant surprise
What I was pleasantly surprised with on the wheats was our continuous wheat trial area.
It is a small block of 12 ha across five fields, and this is its seventh year of continuous wheat. It yielded an average of 8.43 t/ha.
For a seventh wheat to hold that figure says something positive about how we are managing the rotation pressure on that block.
What’s next
We have just over 100 hectares left to combine. Plenty going on alongside that:
- Bales to cart.
- Cultivations to push on with.
- Contract spreading.
Elsewhere, our vet is visiting shortly. I will spend the day with him to look around both units and go through our latest performance data. The combination of in-field arable data and in-shed pig data is, increasingly, where the most useful conversations on this farm happen.
Editor’s note (May 2026)
The cultivation kit Jack mentions in this article (the Sumo Trio) is part of the current FJ Bosworth & Sons contracting offer for arable establishment. Our cultivations service now covers deep cultivation (mounted 3m Sumo Trio), shallow cultivation (trailed 5m Weaving Shortdisc) and low disturbance cultivation (mounted 4m Weaving LD Topsoiler). All operations run on RTK guidance. Full details on the Contracting > Establishment page.
About the author
Jack Bosworth is a fourth-generation farmer and Director of FJ Bosworth & Sons, an arable and pig farming business at Spains Hall, Willingale, Essex. The farm has been in the family since 1919, and Jack farms alongside his father Stuart Bosworth, who was named Farmers Weekly Pig Farmer of the Year in 2011. The business is Red Tractor assured and runs an integrated farm-to-fork model, with home-grown cereals milled on site using solar-generated electricity.
You can follow Jack’s articles on fjbosworth.com, or get in touch via the WhatsApp link on the site.
Fourth-generation farmer at Spains Hall, Willingale. Runs the contracting team and writes most of what appears here.