On The Farm
Wattisham Hall is an arable farm of 365 acres. Crops grown include wheat, barley linseed, and beans.
Depending on the time of year you visit us, you may see various farming operations taking place around the farm:
Autumn
This is a busy time of the year when fields are being ploughed and cultivated ready for the new crop to be sown.
Linseed is usually sown in Early September and Winter Wheat is typically sown between mid September and late October. High horsepower tractors are used to pull the plough and seed drills so that the job can be done at the best possible time for the crop.
Winter
Not much is going on in the fields at this time of year as it is usually too wet and cold, however, work can still be found as the farm is often doing conservation work. We have planted over two kilometres of hedgerow since 2003, and six kilometres of grass margins have been established to protect watercourses and wildlife from farming operations. We have dredged the 13th Century Moat around Wattisham Hall and restored the old orchard with traditional apple plum and pear trees.
This is also the time of year when hedgerow coppicing takes place when hedges are cut down to the ground and allowed to grow up from the base again to create a better, more compact hedge. Much of the wood from coppicing is burnt on the barns’ wood burning stoves so nothing is wasted.
Spring
Work moves on to caring for the autumn sown crops, which need feeding and protection from pests and diseases, so tractors are busy spreading fertiliser and applying agrochemicals to make sure the crops keep clean and healthy.
Other crops such as spring barley and spring beans are planted when the soil conditions and weather are suitable for tractors to travel on the fields
Summer
This is the busiest time of year, with harvesting of oilseed rape usually starting in mid July, and wheat beans and linseed in August.
Combines and tractors work very long hours especially when the wheat is ready to combine as it is a race against time to get the harvest in while the sun shines!
Wildlife on the Farm
We are very lucky to have water voles on the farm, you may see them in or around the moat and ponds. Water voles are the UK’s fastest declining mammal and the risk of further decline due to being mistaken for brown rats will have serious implications for an already vulnerable mammal.
Water voles have disappeared from almost 90 per cent of the sites they occupied in the UK in the last 60 years due to the loss of their riverbank homes and being preyed upon by the non-native American mink.
There are several clear characteristics to distinguish between a water vole and a rat. The water vole has small hidden ears, silky mid-brown fur, a blunt nose and a shorter furry tail, whereas the brown rat has big ears,
Deer living in the area can sometimes be spotted grazing on the fields. Two species live in the area: Roe Deer (indigenous to Britain) and Muntjac (a small deer originally from China), but Red and Fallow deer are sometimes seen also.
Brown hare are found in the area, a species that have disappeared from some counties in England, during the spring you may spot several hares chasing each other in circles or ‘boxing’ each other during
Otter
