EAST Lothian is home to prime arable land and has a rich history in premium food production, so it's fitting that later this month it will host Tillage Live at the Taylor family's Eweford Farm near Dunbar.

The Taylors – William, Elizabeth, and their son Zander – are the second generation to farm at Eweford since William's father moved to the unit in 1968, and over the past 50 years, they've built up one of the best-known arable enterprises in the area, farming almost 1000 acres of owned, rented and contract farmed land across three units.

In previous years, Eweford has been home to livestock but with ever increasing costs in feed and the fact that another full-time member of staff had to be employed, the Taylors opted to focus entirely on arable production and have been able to make the best use of their three steadings.

"We grow 430 acres of winter wheat, 130 acres of spring oats and rent out the rest of the land to a producer who grows sprouts, tatties and vining peas," began Zander, who has worked at home full-time since graduating in 2015 with an HND in agriculture. "We used to work a rotation of three years of winter wheat, vegetables and then tatties but now we've changed it slightly to two years of winter wheat, vegetables, tatties, then back to wheat with either spring oats or peas sown after. It really just depends on the rotation history of the field, but the aim of the game is to get all winter wheat crops into first year wheats with the hope of boosting grain yields and leaving a five-year gap between vegetable crops."

Zander added: "Sowing spring oats after vegetables, rather than winter crops, has helped massively as we found we were always pushed for time trying to get the vegetables lifted and then getting the winter crop in the ground. The vegetables were always going in at a later date which ended up knocking the whole rotation. It's early days in this new rotation as last year was the first year we grew spring oats but hopefully we'll see improvements in the long run."

Most of the land farmed at the three units is based along the coastline and ranges from red sand stone to light loam and is classed at Grade 1 to Grade 3. "Our land here could be described as sharp land – it eats plough metal like it's going out of fashion," said William. "The fields do have drains but we're lucky that they're all free draining and are light to sandstone loam."

In the last two years, the Taylors have moved to a semi min-till system in a bid to reduce running costs, however Zander still ploughs land for spring oats with a Lemken five-furrow due to better weather conditions and more free time. While all sowing is done by a contractor using a Vaderstad six-metre drill which can do up to 100 acres per day on a good run, winter crops are cultivated beforehand with a six-metre Horsch min-till cultivator.

"The majority of the work used to be done by ourselves, but we now get contractors in for sowing, spraying and combining. The price of machinery only ever increases, and you have to keep them in good order and get them serviced regularly so that they're still worth something when it comes to changing the machine," explained William.

"This year, we were sowing no earlier or later than usual, but harvest kicked off about three weeks earlier. It's not so much of a race to get the sowing done as it once was as previously when we used our own Lemken 3metre combo drill we could only do 40 acres in a good day. The big drill that we get in can carry as much as five tonnes of seed whereas our own one drill could only carry one tonne," William added.

Fertiliser is applied after sowing through liquid application as usually the spreaders or spinners can't go to 36 metre tramlines. "Liquid fertiliser suits us best as a spinner can only use granular fertiliser in certain conditions whereas liquid fertiliser in the boom covers the whole area quicker and more effectively. We also find when sowing if you want to cover ground quicker then it's best to work the seed hopper alone rather than applying fertiliser at the same time. The fertiliser hopper needs refilled often or can choke which then slows you up."

On a typical year at Eweford, all straw is chopped behind the combine but due to a strong demand for straw this year, the Taylors hired in a square baler and sold all straw to a livestock farmer in Biggar. The 300 acres of straw produced a total of 833 bales.

Grain yields at Eweford held up too despite an extremely dry year as winter wheat averaged 4.3t/acre while oats were closer to the 2t/acre mark. The best yields saw some winter wheat fields at 5.6t/acre and others at 3.2t/acre although Zander pointed that first wheat crops grown after vining peas produced the highest yields.

In a bid to compare yields and tonnes each year, the team at Eweford record the number of trailer loads taken from each field and whether the size of the loads have gone up or down on the year which allows them to know whether yields have increased or decreased on the year.

All fertiliser and seed for wheat is bought through Frontier and wheat is sold back to the company, while oats are sold to Lindsays who also supply seed for oats too. Oats are sold through a contract, while wheat is sold through the open market with the aim to have it all away by Christmas.

Due to storing wheat for some time, all grain has to be dried at under 14% moisture with the use of a continuous flow drier which the Taylors renewed in 2013. The steading at Eweford also includes two cold stores for tatties as the family previously grew 400 acres of tatties.

FARMfacts:

Situated 1.7 miles from Dunbar

Owned, rented and contracted farm land between three units

430 acres winter wheat, 130 acres spring oats and roughly 400 acres rented out for veg and tatties

John Deere 6195R, John Deere 7530 and JCB 5470 forklift