‘These days you need to be a scientist, economist and farmer all rolled into one if you want to succeed in agriculture’, says arable farmer, Blair Stevenson.
Location: Fife
Crops Grown: Winter barley, spring barley, winter wheat, oil seed rape, peas and potatoes
Land managed: 130 hectares
With 130 ha/340 acres in production, Muirhead Farm sits inland, 700ft above sea level in the Scottish county of Fife. Blair is the fourth generation to farm here, lured back home from university 21 years ago by a desire to be practical and get his hands dirty.
“My father passed away while I was still at university, but that wasn’t the only reason for coming back – I always knew I wanted to farm.”
Blair now grows winter and spring barley, winter wheat, oil seed rape and rents out land for peas and potatoes. Like so many farmers these days, he’s a lone operator using contractors when required. Soil sampling seemed like a natural progression for a farmer working on his own who could do with as much help as possible, but his first attempt with another company was far from successful. It took a conversation with a farming friend at SRUC in Fife to convince him to try SoilEssentials and since then he hasn’t looked back.
‘I took a bit of convincing that things might be anything different, but SoilEssentials thoroughly impressed me with their service. They were quick on the uptake and the service they delivered has simplified everything.’
‘The reports looked right, from the very beginning they were accurate, so I knew things were going in the right direction. I can order what I need myself as I have access to all the maps when processed. I mainly use lime, P and K. It’s a simple, straightforward process – I download the zip files for lime, send it off to the contractor – job done. Once I was involved in the process, it was all extremely easy.’
Blair is now a firm believer in soil sampling and after hearing about the new soil health test that SoilEssentials are offering soon, he says he will be first in line to take this up. But he won’t be stopping there. He has already signed up for KORE and he wants to move in to machine control and have the ability and information to apply prilled lime himself.
‘Being able to get satellite imagery across my farm was one of the draws for me. KORE gives me a portal to view, monitor and manage my farm as a whole. It’s a learning curve for me, but also an exciting opportunity to have all this data at my fingertips.’
Blair says with the support of SoilEssentials he feels he can move forward confidently.
