NSA South East Region Farm Walk

NSA South East Region is pleased to invite members and friends to a Farm Walk on Tuesday 18th June at Mays Farm by kind invitation of David Passmore of Passmore Brothers.

Mays is an SFI pilot farm of around 300ha in the Chiltern AONB with Grade 3 shallow soils mostly over chalk.   

After graduating from Reading University in 1991 David took over the running of the farm from his father who had bought it in 1959. The crop rotation has altered little over the years with 20-30 ha spring barley being undersown with grass/clover annually. This stays down for 3 years, being  grazed with ewes and lambs in year 1, then sucklers in years 2 & 3 before returning to the arable rotation to produce mostly early generation seed crops.

The farm carries 200 Texel X ewes and a small flock of pedigree Southdowns together with 60 pedigree Limousin cows that are outwintered. All progeny are finished on the farm with any replacements sourced from within a closed system with two other farms.

This is a true traditional mixed farm, underlining the mutual benefits and synergies between “horn and corn” with the excellent soil health and organic matter levels supporting excellent crops.    The system developed in the ‘50s and ‘60s when it was how you had to farm, was somewhat derided as outdated in the 1990s & 2000s now is thought of as “amazing” all without really changing anything

At the end of the afternoon there will be a BBQ , so to help with catering logistics please register your intention to attend by contacting either: Sarah Blake  on 07734428712 or southeast@nationalsheep.org.uk  or Yann Le Du on 07775902228 or ylpledu@gmail.com