After 45 years working for Nickerson I have decided to move on to the next stage of my life, which is  retirement.

I thought it was ironic that on my last day on farm I’ve taken a picture of one of the best crops of winter wheat I have seen in my area which happened to be Claire, a winter wheat which must be over 25 years old.  It has been a pleasure helping Nickerson to introduce new varieties to the market and hear the success stories of those that we have introduced, too many varieties to mention.

A massive thank you to all my customers, if it was not for your support and loyalty I would definitely not have lasted the 45 years working for the company and I wish you all every success in your future cropping. I know I am very comfortable leaving the business in a very safe pair of hands – those of Douglas Bonn. We have enjoyed meeting most of you over the last three months and he will continue to look after your requirements in the future.

Again thank you for your support I wish you well

Nick Wallace.

I am pleased to announce the introduction of the new Nickerson combinables brochure for Autumn 2024, which brings together for the first time Cereals and OSR, in to one easy to navigate book. This brochure should be the go-to document for anyone wishing to gather relevant information to help build their cropping plan for the next sowing season.

Whilst there may be viable alternatives/options within the current version of the SFI for marginal land. Choosing crops and varieties which offer the most economical route to the highest output, is still the biggest driver to whole farm profitability.

This booklet alongside the experience of your regional seed specialist, should help signpost you to the right choice for your situation.  Please click HERE to download a digital copy or the ‘find your local Seed Specialist’ button at the top of this page to connect you with someone who will be able to offer solutions to fit your farm, area, market or cropping plan. Seed supply may well be affected this autumn due to the difficult autumn and spring so I would suggest building the plan sooner rather than later, especially for Cereals and key varieties of OSR.   

I am excited to have started my career at Nickerson, and look forward to getting stuck into my new role as Seed Specialist in glorious Yorkshire.

I will be covering the Yorkshire region from the Humber to the moors of North Yorkshire, heading west across the Pennines and on to the Lancashire border. In my previous role I was involved in the seed potato industry, so with Nickerson I will be swapping seed potatoes for just about every other type of seed!

I grew up in the Scottish Borders surrounded by farms but with no direct links to agriculture until I opted to study it at SRUC in Edinburgh. I embarked on a career in the potato industry, having carried out a placement year with McDonald’s focussing on where their fries come from. I then switched from ware potatoes to seed potatoes. The seed industry has always been of interest to me for two key reasons; Firstly, regardless of the crop type everything in farming starts with a seed; Secondly, my grandfather had a seed business based in the Borders many years ago dealing mainly with grass. Although no longer in existence, I like to think I am carrying on the family tradition!

My area includes a mix of low ground arable farms to upland sheep farms, and I am looking forward to getting to know customers both old and new, and offering seed based solutions to meet the unique challenges thrown up by each farming system.

If I can be of any assistance to farmers in the Yorkshire region, please do not hesitate to contact me on 07734 737008 or grant.connor@nickerson.co.uk

As the shed doors close after a challenging harvest ‘23 we have been busy sowing the Nickerson demonstration sites for the coming season.

We have three sites this year.  In Aberdeenshire at Savock Farms, Ellon by kind permission of Andrew Booth.

Savock Farms, Ellon

Barelees Farm, Borders

In Fife at Wellsgreen Farm by kind permission of WS & J Whiteford and in conjunction with Forth Crop Solutions and in the borders at Barelees Farm by kind permission of the Todd family.

At each site we have current popular varieties and new varieties to look at from both the Limagrain wheat breeding program as well as other breeders.  Our focus this year has been on seed rates, so many varieties have been sown at different rates.

Wellsgreen Farm, Fife

Cultivation and the rotation position is different on each site.  At Savock the demonstration is after winter oil seed rape, cultivated with a Simba XL and sown with an Amazon drill, at Wellsgreen the demonstration is following spring barley cultivated with Simba SL and sown with a Lemken power harrow drill.  The Barelees site is after peas harvested in June and then sown in a cover crop.  Most of the field was cultivated with a Terrano the day before sowing with an area left to allow us to drill into the cultivated area and directly into the cover crop with a Vaderstad Rapid.

Updates will be posted throughout the season but if anyone would like to visit any of the sites please contact either Nick or Douglas.

I am delighted to have started my new role as a Seed Specialist at Nickerson.

I will be covering the North West, North Wales and North Shropshire areas. Since graduating with a BSc Agricultural degree, I had been working on the family farm, which is a 300-acre arable and livestock enterprise where we run 100 Hereford cows and 300 sheep.

We crop approximately 100 acres of the farm annually, this year we will be growing LG Typhoon winter wheat and LG Caravelle winter barley, which will be used on the farm for livestock feed, with excess sold into the feed market.

The livestock enterprise is run with an emphasis placed on maximising daily live weight gain from forage. We improve grazing leys through over seeding on rotation, in addition to including high yielding grass mixtures, as part of the arable rotation for ensiling.

I am excited to meet my customer base throughout the area and assist you with fulfilling your farms’ potential.

If there is anything I can help you with, please do not hesitate to contact me on 07860 590 412 or george.hall@nickerson.co.uk

What a difference a year can make! July 2022 saw a record-breaking temperature of over 40⁰C. This year, in stark contrast we have just endured one of the wettest Julys ever recorded, adding pressure and complication to both harvest and sowing. Whilst moisture is a key driver to establishing OSR it’s also a huge challenge when trying to harvest nearly twelve months of hard work and investment. Fortunately, LG genetics can help de-risk some of the challenges with such traits as pod shatter resistance and high vigour in our OSR, or standing power, sprouting resistance, harvest date and disease resistance in autumn cereals. Whilst we have no influence on the weather, we can make a big difference with the choices we make when selecting varieties for the next season. Which is where dealing with a Nickerson Seed Specialist can have a positive effect on helping growers select the correct varieties to maximise the benefit from strong LG genetics.