Ryan McCormack, farm manager at Dennington Hall Farms has big plans and number of objectives hes keen to gain funding to help him achieve.
Dennington Hall Farms is predominantly an arable farm, farming over 1,200 hectares of combinable crops and sugar beet in Suffolk on mostly sandy clay loams (SCL). There are also 40 suckler red poll cattle which graze the meadows surrounding the farmyard, 80ha of woodland which is coppiced and thinned and provides woodchip for the two biomass boilers at the farm and at Bruisyard Hall, a wedding venue also owned by Dennington Hall, andseveral residential and commercialproperties.
Mr McCormack has outlined five main things hes keen to achieve:
Firstly, to accurately measure our total carbon footprint, core sampling the fields to see how much carbon we are storing.
Secondly, we will develop a robust biological nutrient plant, something like a large scale Johnson Su system where we can brew our own biological tea, and reduce the artificial N requirement.
Thirdly, capturing energy and nutrients from cover crops and cover crop destruction by purchasing a crimper roller, which will roll down and crimp the cover and the second approach would be to purchase electric fencing and strip graze sheep/livestock.
Fourthly, I would like to use a small proportion of the funds towards trials, using Endophyte seed dressing, coupled with bio stimulants, alongside a new product called R-LEAF which will hopefully take Nitrous oxide from the atmosphere and turn it in to a nitrate that can be absorbed by the crop.
Fifth, depending on the amount of funds available, I would like to see a start made with the drone technology, monitoring, measuring crop growth and development, and applying nutrients.
