Thriplow Farms Annual Report 1977

Last year, after the worst harvest we had ever experienced, we decided to use the "High Input" system of cereal growing in the hopes that the resulting yields would more than pay for the increased costs,  I wrote    "Our targets should be the following average yields: Winter Barley 40cwt, Spring Barley 38cwt and Winter Wheat 60cwt.  With reasonable weather conditions we should be able to attain these levels even on our light land."  Except for Spring Barley, which looks like averaging 36-37cwt, we have comfortably exceeded these targets after a harvest which has been nothing short of miraculous.  Lots of rain throughout the year may have made combining difficult but it gave us the sort of yields in every crop which occur once in a life time.  Corn, lucerne, herbage seed, mustard, rape - everything except sugar beet - have comfortably beaten the old records.Read the full report