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NEW Brett Vale Farming Diary - a taster of what's coming soon

  • Writer: Lynda Croft
    Lynda Croft
  • Nov 13
  • 3 min read

With not too much arm twisting, our Farm Manager, Oliver Pratt, is going to try to find time to give us a little update each month of the activities of the Brett Vale Farming team. Olly is passionate about farming and it comes across in his writing. It's in his blood. His family have farmed in Suffolk for nearly 100 years.


Here is a sample of what's to come in the Brett Vale Farming Diary.


November has started as October finished, unseasonably dry. This is most definitely welcome after the last two autumns and has allowed us to get up to date with land work.

A spraying arm of a tractor over a wheat field with the sun and hedgerow in the background.

 



We have managed to run the press around headlands of ploughed land to level them and help with spring cultivations. Spraying top-up herbicides on wheat has been possible without the risk of wrecking tramlines for the rest of the season, this will be invaluable for efficiency of spraying and for blackgrass control.





An orange tractor loaded with TSP to spread on the fields.




We also spread TSP on some land which was short of phosphorus, before getting it into routine with Fibrophos going forward. Fibrophos is made from recycling poultry litter to provide nutrients in a more sustainable way.





A night view of sugar beet harvester and tractors working to harvest sugar beet.

The beet harvester has been back and we have completed a big, second lift in excellent conditions. The team worked hard, day and night (fuelled by fish and chips!), to turn this into wheat before the forecast rain on Friday, the 14th November. This is again a total contrast to the last two seasons, which I am very grateful for. This leaves 20ha of beet still to lift but these are on fields with an historic grassweed problem so perhaps another spring crop on these will be a blessing in disguise, unless we get another dry spell and I can’t help myself! 


4 tractors at work on a field recently ploughed and drilled.


Horsch Avatar drilling machine in red in front of a barn, being towed by an orange tractor.

This month has brought a new arrival to Dairy Farm as well as one farewell.  I collected our new (to us) Horsch Avatar 12m drill, this is an exciting step forward for Brett Vale Farming and will give us a lot more output, whilst giving us the opportunity to trial direct drilling when conditions allow.  Direct drilling can reduce costs and have environmental benefits but isn’t always possible due to weather and cropping.  This machine gives us more options.


Four tall men smiling in a pub bar.

Our fond farewell is to Nick who is retiring. He has been a mainstay of the BVFC team since 2021 and for Heathpatch a few years before that. Nick carried out the drilling and the spraying and has big shoes to fill.  His wit and relaxed attitude will be missed in the mess room, whilst I will miss him being there to turn to for advice.  The average age on the other hand is significantly reduced!


Photo taken in The Lindsey Rose at Nick's retirement party: L-R Charles Buckle, George Westwood, Nick Huxtable and Oliver Pratt.



Whilst the team were busy turning ‘beet to wheat’, I jumped on the sprayer to apply the last autumn herbicide to the oilseed rape.  This came with enormous satisfaction as it looks really well, the best OSR we’ve had for some time. There is still a long way to go, I’m under no illusion of that, but being right outside my house and having had some poor headlands on these fields recently, particularly in 2023, this feels like a real achievement.  


A sprayer at work in a field of oilseed rape with a cloudy grey sky overhead. Trees with no leaves.

Whilst spraying I saw a covey of grey partridge, a woodcock and a snipe – a real indicator that modern agriculture and nature can go hand in hand.

Oliver Pratt, November 2025



Photo credit: Oliver Pratt



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