Harvest and winter prep
Throughout Summer, the Farm Team were busy focusing on harvest operations to safely cut all cereal crops and get them into the grain stores. The weather plays a vital role during this time to ensure the crop is dry enough to cut, whilst also enabling straw to be left in rows to be baled or chopped. It’s also spread back onto the field to add nutrients into the soil. Following the prolonged wet start to the year, the quality and yield of the organic crops have varied, however harvest was completed with success. Work has now moved on the Farm to drilling 2025 cereal crops as well as cover crops.
The planting of new woodland compartments is also underway and, combined with last years means approximately 15,000 new trees have been added to the Estate in 5 separate areas. Mulch strips are a natural compost have been added to the new trees to safeguard and lock in moisture giving roots the best chance to grow and establish.
In addition to the new planting, the forestry team began thinning works in the late Summer in select woodland areas across the Estate, this is to extract timber to open up the woodland so other trees continue develop and thrive, and give more light to the woodland floor flora and fauna providing a healthier habitat for wild game birds and to boost biodiversity. Any timber extracted in the thinning process will go for firewood or higher-grade markets if the timber meets quality.
The Estate also welcomed a contractor with a biomass chipper to fill the biomass store ahead of the winter months arriving. All chip originates from timber harvested on the Estate and this will be used in the biomass boiler servicing Sandringham House along with several other residential properties on the Estate.
Following a difficult start to the year with a cold and wet spring, the Wardens team have continued to monitor bird counts and check on health. With the stewardship and establishment of more field margins providing extra habitats this has also attracted other insects which play an important dietary role. We hope the pheasant, partridge and wider bird species continue to thrive through the stewardship.