PROFILE Premier Seed Services >>
Three of Premier Seeds’ mo- bile units are fitted with GS12 separators, which can process up to 10t of wheat an hour, while the fourth has a GS18 with a capac- ity of 12-16t an hour. Alan heads one unit, and the workshop staff provide the other three team lead- ers to run the very machines they spend the rest of the year mak- ing and maintaining.
“Growth in manufacturing has strengthened our business and means we can employ well- paid, full-time staff who take their in-depth knowledge of the business on to the farm,” says Joe. “We always strive to have an overcapacity of machinery rath- er than sweating our assets at 100%. There’s nothing worse than saying we’ll be late: what the farmer wants is for us to ar- rive on the farm when required, and to carry out the seed process- ing professionally and efficiently.”
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We always strive to have an overcapacity of machinery rather than sweating our assets at 100%.
Farm saved seed doesn’t ap- peal to every farmer: it requires an extra element of organisation, especially at harvest, and an area to store the saved seed and keep different varieties separate.
Bespoke service “You need to treat it like a seed crop and look after it. But we say it’s worth the hassle. Why not put the effort into next year’s crop? You look at which varieties are growing well, and call us in to clean, process and treat the seed. We don’t have to just meet the minimum HVS standard: you can dress seed harder on the farm. It’s a tailored, bespoke service. “Last summer, for example, there were lots of low thousand grain weights, and, if you were buying in seed, that’s all there was. But if you’re retaining your own seed, you can keep the very best part by choosing the best field and the cleanest crop, and then having the gravity separator on-farm to select the best grains.” Ben Hadingham of Retreat
Farms at Flixton is growing sev- en varieties of C1 wheat this year, which he will save and use to grow
56 ANGLIA FARMER • JUNE 2019
all of next season’s wheat – except for the C1 varieties he’ll be grow- ing for the following year’s crops. He tries to use first year wheat land to reduce the risk of volun- teers, in fields clean of blackgrass and where barley hasn’t been grown in the previous few years. “Trying to guess two years’ in advance what the end market will want can be difficult, especially with some of the newer varieties, so we’ll grow a tonne and see how it performs. Sometimes we’ll end up with one that’s not so well suit- ed, but at least we are trying it on our own land, and if it doesn’t do so well we’ve only grown a bit.” The combine is cleaned in the field and the trailers swept out before harvesting the seed crops ready for Premier Seeds to come to the farm for two days of pro- cessing, and again later in the season as needed.
Ben sees a number of bene- fits to farm saved seed: “Timeli- ness is the main thing: we have
The GS12 separator can process up to 10t of wheat an hour, while the larger GS18 has a capacity of 12-16t an hour.
that seed on the farm in our con- trol from the day it’s combined. If we don’t want to drill until the middle of October, that’s ok, but there’s nothing more frustrating than waiting for seed. This way everything is in our hands.
Grower choice “Also the quality of our seed is a lot better than we could buy in – bought in seed has strong germi- nation but might not be the bold- est grain, which is what you want to give the plant the best start. We try and grow on heavier land less likely to have droughted out by harvest – last year we still had nice samples. “Farm saved seed does come
up cheaper, too, by about £100 a tonne.”
Germination testing can be carried out by Suffolk Seed Lab- oratory at Earl Soham, either by
farmers sending grain samples direct or Premier Seed Services collecting from customers’ farms. Loss of chemicals, particularly of neonicotinoid seed treatment in cereals, is provoking a diverse range of responses: on the one hand, says Jenny, some are ad- vocating multiple treatments and additives to to ensure early vig- our, while on the other, some are planning to abandon seed treat- ments altogether. “For us, it’s all about grower
choice, allied with what’s best for the quality reputation of farm saved seed in the long term,” she says. “We’d urge farmers to use a fungicide seed treatment where available, at the very least, on their main seed crop. “We all tend to think that bunt and smut are in the past, but, as seen with measles, diseases of the past can reappear in under-pro- tected populations. Single pur- pose seed treatments remove the risk factor, protecting you and your seed from avoidable losses, at very low cost.”
BUSINESS FACTS
• Design and manufacture • Mobile seed processing • East Anglia-wide bespoke service
• Major expansion of workshop area
CONTACT DETAILS
The workshop staff run the mobile seed processing units they spend the rest of the year making.
T: 01728 602461 E:
Jenny@farmsavedseed.co.uk W:
farmsavedseed.co.uk
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