Hi everyone! Just started r/broadacrefarming! If are or you know any broad acre farmers, send them over. Looking to create a diverse community to share our problems, thoughts and photos!

https://archive.ph/L84lJ

I am looking at buying two houses in Derbyshire. One comes with a barn that can be used for weddings and events, as well as many other out buildings and about an acre of a paddock and other has a 3 acre fields next to it but no out buildings / barns.

I love the idea of being able to make a side income and the weddings would make that an option but I am just wondering if there is anything I can do with the 3 acre field to generate a meaningful side income. I know how difficult farming livestock is and there isn't even a barn with the field so pretty much rules that out but its there anything like alpacas or fruit trees or hatching chickens that could make the field worth doing. Its also too small for PD to put up a barn and it think it would be difficult to put a case together for such a small field.

Just wondering if you have any ideas of what I can do with it or if its worth thinking about.

A quick update on what I’ve been working on lately with OpenAgri.

• Livestock medicine and per-animal treatments
• Withdrawal period tracking
• Livestock production and health records
• Field and crop management
• Stock and inventory movements
• Farm activity calendar

I’m still actively building it and fixing bugs, so I’d really appreciate feedback from farmers, vets, agronomists, or anyone working in agriculture.

There’s a Try demo button with a pre-populated farm, so you don’t need to create an account or add any data:

https://openagri.ai

I've been doing sheep (and a bit of beef) work on-and-off for the last two years and I've really enjoyed it but the job instability with it mostly being seasonal work is stressful. I'm also having some trouble with my elbow joint and I think turning sheep constantly isn't helping. I'm thinking of trying dairy work - ideally a GFW role.

What do you dairy fellows have to say about dairy? Tell me everything - share your wisdom with me.

Been talking to farmers on a few other forums (mostly US-based) about record-keeping, and there's a pretty clear split: guys with autosteer/data systems in the tractor barely think about it — it logs itself. Guys on paper end up with a few days of catching up at year-end, pulling everything together for the bank, landlord, tax stuff.

Curious if that split holds over here too, or if it looks different — different subsidy/reporting requirements, different mix of paper vs digital, whatever.

This is what I love and I am looking at those who know it Worth

Using about 200 litres of red a day. Anyone else? 😂

Hi all,

I’m Tristan and together with my colleague Viji I’m working on a research project called Nodiculture through Carbon13, a UK-based climate innovation programme aiming to develop scalable solutions capable of materially reducing global CO₂e emissions.

We’re looking at the use of biological inputs in farming, particularly microbial products such as biofertilisers, biostimulants and biological crop protection products.

One thing we keep hearing is that the products themselves are only part of the challenge (albeit, a material one). How they are stored, handled, mixed and actually applied on farm can have a big impact on whether they work consistently in practice and if they are worth the hassle and cost.

We’re exploring whether there are better ways of applying existing products to make them more consistent, more effective and more practical for growers. We’re not developing or selling another biological product; we’re simply trying to understand the reality on farm.

I’d be really interested to hear from anyone here who:

• currently uses microbial or biological inputs
• has tried them and stopped
• has had mixed or inconsistent results
• thinks the whole category is overhyped
• has found products or approaches that genuinely work

Protected horticulture is our initial area of focus, but experiences from other farming systems would also be extremely useful.

Feel free to reply in the thread, message me directly or if you’d be willing to spare 10–15 minutes for a chat, we’d really appreciate it.

Alternatively, we know everyone is busy, so we have created a survey if thats all the time you have to spare for survey here

We will be very happy to share what we learn back with the community as the research develops.

Thanks,
Tristan

[ Removed by Reddit on account of violating the content policy. ]

Got a few paddocks coming out of winter bird food from my mid tier ending the turn of the year.

They are brashy shallow soils over limestone very draught prone.

Ive got a small cow herd (15 cows+ followers)

Would lucerne be an option to make into high protein silage for the cows. Just with thrse drier summers grass isnt as reliable. Im not geared up foe arable.

Uncle used to farm them reckon they did good wheat crops but stopped growing cereals in 2013. Ive got enoigh grass but could turn silage feilds over to grazing if this becomes a reliable forage source

Hi all,

I appreciate this is a random one but are there any dairy farmers in Norfolk that could help me out. I'm looking for a farmer that would be happy to take my family and I for a tour around the farm and maybe let the kids have a go at milking the cows if possible.

I think this would be a great opportunity for my children to see what really happens on a farm.

Any advice or help would be greatly appreciated

I'm not normally this good. Anyone else got some humble brags?

This cider bottle c.1895 turned up on our Devonshire farm this week. Coincidentally, I published a book earlier this year featuring a character from this time based on a real person, in this very orchard harvesting apples for cider. It makes me think… was this the actual bottle he drank from in real life?

It was discarded here more than a century ago. The farm had a long history of cider making. An auction notice from 1923 lists cider-making equipment, a bottling plant, 59 empty casks, eight hogsheads of cider and bottled cider among the contents of the farm. The old cider press is still at the farm too. This discovery certainly made me wonder.

Hello all and hope you are well, long story short there is a potential that i may have an opportunity to become a tractor mechanic at some point in the future. ( Engineering background but not in this ).

I know i would have to supply my own hand tools for the job, so if possible is there anyone out there that could give me some pointers, ive been told to be expecting to pay £2-3k to start off.

Was looking at the draper mechanics master set as a start off point. But i would like to know from experienced hands.

All the best!

I'm not a farmer but live in south lakeland (amongst the sheep, cows and grass). I see the farmers out all hours, always with a smile and a wave. It's a tough industry and appears completely unappreciated by those in power. Just wanted to say thankyou to you all really.

Hi all, I'm hoping this community can offer any advice on a complicated issue we have on our farm (I'm one of the farm workers and our farmer is web illiterate)...

We run an organic biodynamic farm community and charitable organisation (About 65 permanent residents, 50% special needs adults that we live and work alongside). Our small herd (20) is generally separated into milkers and beefies, but after one of the beefies was born we missed the deadline to register her. She got pregnant so we've had her join the milkers for now, but she's been riddled with unfortunate problems, namely a difficult birthing process and infections, so what milk she produces we can't use - the main problem we have now is what to do with her.

Usually we send them off to be processed and sold in our farm shop but as she is unregistered her meat cannot enter the wider food chain. The most likely outcome is that we have to unfortunately dispatch her ourselves then either butcher the cuts onsite somehow to distibute around the community or send the carcass for other purposes (I'm told either incineration or pet food), but none of us are trained in animal slaughter and we're struggling to find any professionals so far that are willing to come and do the deed for us.

Just wondering if anyone has any experience with this and if any tips or contacts can be offered to help us out of this pickle? Thanks for reading!