NEWTON Rigg farms have had a good silage crop and are comfortably placed, with betterquality silage and more of it than last year.

Yields from the new herd are still maintaining 32 litres per day, and there’s a steady stream of visitors and college staff coming to view the innovative thinking behind the unit. Sewborwens Farm has only a small area of cereal crops and we are still waiting to start harvest.

At Askham Bryan at York, the second-cut silage is safely stored in clamps and the quality looks good and, according to farm manager Oli Pilbeam, yields are high.

This means no third cut and he may use this for haylage – some of it sold to our own equine yard. It sounds odd to sell produce to another department in the same business, but the farm has to stand on its own financial feet.

Equine markets are very particular about the haylage quality and are not easily pleased!

Harvesting at York is in full swing having made a stuttering start in July on the barley where we struggled with the unsettled conditions.

At least there was no hail in the storms to knock out the rape, and this is safely harvested.

As in the past, the emphasis has been on Class 3 and 4 wheats as our storage facilities are limited, and we have to put the grain temporarily on concrete pads before collection.

Because of these limitations, we rarely cut wheats above 18 per cent, but this is not always possible.

The storage situation should resolve itself in the next couple of years, as we have plans to build a general- purpose shed where we can at least store temporarily under cover, though we have no plans for a grain drier and longer-term storage facilities at Askham Bryan.

The majority of the Texel x Beltex lambs are being sold into Selby market where the local trade likes the slightly smaller but meaty, tight- skinned animals.

The Texel x Mules are also going live this year, in a departure from our normal practice of selling deadweight, at a slightly lower price.

Every year, we demonstrate to our students the different attributes of these breeds, both on mothering abilities, growth rates, killing out percentage and conformation.

The early season Texel x Beltex lambs achieved premium prices at the live auction marts, though prices have dropped back to £80- £90 at the moment. All ram breeds on the farm are sourced from EBV performance- tested flocks, the Texels from Jack Lucas, near Driffield, East Yorkshire, and Neale McQuistin, of Newton Stewart, Wigtownshire.

Our flocks are a small but significant part of our college farm business, and we aim to use commerciallyrelevant breeds to give students a realistic industry experience.

Newton Rigg College farms are now able to provide a supply of performance- assured Mules as replacements, which enables us to demonstrate the full stratification of the UK sheep industry.

After a successful first outing to the Great Yorkshire Show, the Level 1 Agric students had a busy turnaround to prepare their heifers for Driffield Show.

After clipping, bathing and brushing, Jordan Foster and Lauthority Chapel gained first place in the maiden heifer class, with Thomas Kyte and Lauthority Nel coming third.

Askham Bryan student Clive Penten won three rosettes at the show with his Herdwick tup. He came away with best male, best shearling and best of breed rosettes – a good result.

Agriculture and environmental conservation students from York recently completed an 18-day study tour in Norway.

They have been birdwatching, learning how to build log cabins, fishing, tree-planting, rock-climbing, visited the Norwegian Red Cattle at the Kings Farm, toured the Viking Ships Museum and also visited the world’s largest and most advanced bio-fuel refinery.

Our awards ceremonies are an extremely important feature of the college year, and students have finished for the summer, although the colleges remain open with various summer schools, courses, and equestrian events continuing.

To ensure the survival of any business, it important to utilise available resources all year round, and this is no different in a college.

There has been an unprecedented rise in applications for all courses beginning in September, and our challenge is to make sure that last year’s student experience is not only matched, but exceeded in the coming academic year.

  • Liz Philip, executive principal