Carrot Review

RAINFALL MONITORING Digital insight boosts rainfall understanding WHEN BCGA chairman Rodger Hobson was asked what provided the most interesting on-farm statistics for his farm, his answer was simple: Rainfall. RODGER HOBSON Rodger Hobson joined the family business, Hobson Farming, in 1990. Based in Crockey Hill, North Yorkshire, the company is the biggest UK grower of carrots for processing, producing more than 30,000 tonnes annually. Its ‘end to end’ process covers everything from cultivation to washing and grading, providing a year-round supply of fresh, quality carrots to customers including Marks & Spencer. T he North Yorkshire farmer who is the UK’s largest grower of carrots for the processing market, producing more than 30,000 tonnes each year, told Carrot Review: “Rainfall is far and away the most important thing for us - more important than anything else on the farm. “I want to know how much rain we have had in real time, anytime, anywhere. Without that information, it’s impossible to make accurate and informed decisions. “Our farming strategy revolves around soil structure and land quality. at means timely cultivations and careful harvesting. But without knowing how much rain we’ve had, we don’t know which eld is safe to harvest without damage, or which eld needs irrigating. “Whether we had 5mm or 15mm of rain, it makes such a di erence.” Keep on moving Making sure he and his team of 20 – from farm manager to machinery operators – can access this data is crucial to the e cient running of his 2,000-ha unit. Alongside the carrot crop, wheat, barley, rape and sugar beet complete his own rotation. Additional parcels rented from nearby units achieve the full rotation, together with reciprocal rental arrangements that see potatoes and peas grown on the unit’s favourable Yorkshire sand land. elevation. And then there’s the variability and sheer unpredictability of summer showers. “Weather forecasts are now very accurate, far more so than they were even 20 years ago. Yet they can’t tell you how much rain you’re going to get. ey remain incredibly inaccurate on the actual volume.” Initially, a tech-based solution was found using WhatsApp. “We set up a WhatsApp group amongst the farm sta and gave each of them a rain gauge to put in their gardens,” Mr Hobson explains. “Each morning, when everyone got up, we’d measure the gauge and tell everybody through WhatsApp.” But this still had its shortcomings, so attention switched to exploring options for on-farm weather stations. In talking “We need quite a lot of land to keep the carrot crop moving onto fresh ground, to prevent cavity spot,” said Rodger “ at means we need rainfall statistics from quite a wide area. “Most of the temperature aspects you can get from the weather forecast,” he notes, “and while it might be 17°C at one site and 21°C at another, that’s accurate enough for what we need. “But rainfall is much more localised. ere are rain shadows, there are di erences due to 8 CARROT REVIEW JANUARY 2021