The Estate was awarded the runner up prize in for the prestigious Tye Trophy competition at the Great Yorkshire Show on Wednesday. The Yorkshire Agricultural Society nominated our Home Farm as one of the best examples of conservation farming in the northern region. The Tye Trophy recognises the contribution of farmers in the north of England to conservation and environmental improvement on a commercial farm.
The award was presented by Simon Theakston, President of the Yorkshire Agricultural Society for the work the Estate has undertaken over the last 5 years. Several important wildlife habitats have been brought back into environmental management since 2018 including moorland where drainage grips have been blocked to re wet the moor, introducing conservation grazing using native breeds to benefit upland waders such as Curlew and Lapwing, drilling 277 acres of winter bird food , pollen and nectar mixes and over winter stubbles for farmland birds and digging 15 ponds and scrapes on marginal land for freshwater pond species. Restoring 10,000m of traditional field boundaries such as dry stone walls and hedgerows have been undertaken along with planting 27,500 native trees on non- productive farmland. Barn Owls are now a common sight around the farm after installing 12 nest boxes in various farm buildings across the Estate. We now have 12 rainwater harvesters holding 360,000 litres of rainwater from the roofs of the farm buildings and are about to install a solar panel array on the grain sheds to make us more energy sustainable in the future.
We are primarily a commercial farm growing over 1,000 acres of cereals with Winter Wheat, Spring and Winter Barley and Oil Seed Rape grown in rotation around the fields. However, every opportunity is taken to maintain and encourage wildlife to the farm wherever possible and we will continue to adopt this approach in the future.
