Reclaimed land

[Overby]

Anybody farming any previous opencast?

What's the returns like first 5 years when it's grassed ie you let it out for grazing? Bale it? How do the figures stack up?

Anyone cropped in those 5 years?

Cheers

 

[Nearly]

anyone near you @Dman2

 

[Clive]

Anybody farming any previous opencast?

What's the returns like first 5 years when it's grassed ie you let it out for grazing? Bale it? How do the figures stack up?

Anyone cropped in those 5 years?

Cheers

farmed 300acres ex opencast for a few years

when if was rent free it was ok financially, when they wanted rent we gave it up

 

[Overby]

farmed 300acres ex opencast for a few years

when if was rent free it was ok financially, when they wanted rent we gave it up

How did you manage it during the grass time? Did you graze it yourself?

 

[herman]

Farm probably 300 ac of ex opencast land, some done in the 50' and 60', some done twice and some done in the last 15 years.
You have to be very patient with it and treat it with respect. With some care, attention, plenty of organic matter it will improve and yield well.
Given the choice I wouldn't farm it but we own it and it surrounds us so no choice really.
We grow spuds on some of it successfully so it can't be that bad.

 

[Clive]

How did you manage it during the grass time? Did you graze it yourself?

was all arable

 

[Dman2]

Loads round here, but all going back 40 years or so
Seem to remember it being fairly poor land for long enough

 

[GeorgeK]

Farm probably 300 ac of ex opencast land, some done in the 50' and 60', some done twice and some done in the last 15 years.
You have to be very patient with it and treat it with respect. With some care, attention, plenty of organic matter it will improve and yield well.
Given the choice I wouldn't farm it but we own it and it surrounds us so no choice really.
We grow spuds on some of it successfully so it can't be that bad.

What is it made up of I suppose it varies? Topsoil from local projects over a clay cap perhaps, is it free draining?

 

[Overby]

Anyone had the experience of farming straight after the return to farmland, ie during the first 5 years when it's still in grass?

 

[Salopian_Will]

Anyone had the experience of farming straight after the return to farmland, ie during the first 5 years when it's still in grass?

I have been involved in some in a previous life but not actually farming it. You need to keep records of your yield of bales, what you have applied etc but other than than that it is farmed as any other land.

Some is put back lovely and some is awful but the more recent stuff tends to be better. Of course it helps if the topsoil was decent stuff in the first place. Sometimes they think about land drains, sometimes they do not but presuming it is following mineral extraction, it will probably be on some pretty gravelly/light ground anyway.

I would take a punt as the sums involved will likely be very small and it will be eligible for BPS (while it still exists). If it produces nothing then either get the rent reduced further or ask the owner to subsidise you - it will be cheap to tick off their aftercare requirements.

 

[Courier]

Not opencast but 100 acres of reclaimed pitstacks put back with varying amounts of topsoil - Had it as grass for silage and rearing heifers on since the mid 80's and then when we abandoned dairying ended up in Miscanthus - Ongoing viability will depend on what level of government support it attracts and wet summers....

 

[Cowmansam]

There’s one near me around 150 acres been done in the last couple years bloke who has it had 3 cuts of silage and some heifers grazing over it looks decent land now and as others have said been ex gravel land is free draining

 

[Cowmansam]

I’ve seen it being filled in slowly nearly my whole life was over 15 feet of subsoil put back and around 3 off top soil I would think how it’s been put back is the most important factor

 

[herman]

What is it made up of I suppose it varies? Topsoil from local projects over a clay cap perhaps, is it free draining?

Hopefully the soil removed is put back on top in the right order.
But back in the day anything on top of coal was deemed 'muck' by the muckshift contractor.
So not a lot of care was taken, we farmed a block of about 90 acres that was the whole of a site done in the 50's. One part had 6" of topsoil over clay and another has over 18", the deepest soil was next to the soil storage areas !!
One part had an old water storage tank that supplied the village with drnking water and was never touched. The tank is long gone now and round it is some of the nicest soil we have farmed, black and fine and over sandstone. According to my grandfather it was excellent land before it was opencast.

We have just acquired some more land this spring that was as I can remember a big bank that was the tip off point of a opencast that was never reinstated.
It was done in the 90s and a small amount of coal was removed that paid for it to be put back to fields.
Brother has cultivated it today and said its not too bad but quite wet.
It had long time in grass and a couple of arable crops and a couple of fallow years but a large amount of compost applied.
We will see how we go with it, not sure if they found some soil on site or if it is made up of clay and bluebind or imported materials, I cannot remember.
Time will tell.

One benefit from opencast is usually a good drainage system, but any natural drainage has been destroyed.

 

[BigBarl]

We have some ex-opencast reclaimed about 20 years ago, generally speaking it’s shite and won’t make you a fortune. All the top soil that was left was put back on a couple of fields and the majority is just clay with no drainage. A drainage scheme would help but not too willing to pay to have it done while the land is still settling. 10 years of grass and sheep built some OM back up but nothing of consequence. We bought ours so viewed it as a long term investment, if renting you’d want a cheap rate to make it worthwhile. We’ve had some good crops off it in a dry year (very wet ground as still settling) - best we had was 8.8t/ha of skyfall in 2018 but would budget for around 6t/ha of winter wheat or barley usually. We’re putting a large chunk of it back down to Countryside stewardship and grass for hay now, arable a ball ache and the stone picking is back ache!

 

[Kildare]

I had a mile long x24m stripped off by a water company when they were laying a mains.
It was done well enough but dose not drain like it used do.