Suffolk soil types around Bungay ?

[Pilatus]

I believe a farmer that farmed on the Cotswolds has moved to his farm he bought somewhere around Bungay.
Do the soil types vary considerably?
Just wondered how they would compare to Cotswold soil types especially with the wet last winter and now the very dry spring / summer.

 

[Suffolk Serf]

I believe a farmer that farmed on the Cotswolds has moved to his farm he bought somewhere around Bungay.
Do the soil types vary considerably?
Just wondered how they would compare to Cotswold soil types especially with the wet last winter and now the very dry spring / summer.

Varies in that neck of the woods from predominantly heavyish Beccles series clay away from the Waveney river valley. Decent wheat land. Nearer the river there is some lighter ground, then by the river higher water table and best left in grass. There are even still a handful of dairy farms using this grass.

 

[Two Tone]

I believe a farmer that farmed on the Cotswolds has moved to his farm he bought somewhere around Bungay.
Do the soil types vary considerably?
Just wondered how they would compare to Cotswold soil types especially with the wet last winter and now the very dry spring / summer.

I am someone who did it reverse, moving from that area in Suffolk to the Cotswold.
Thought I knew it all before I came here!

About 2 years after I got here, I saw an advert for a Farm Manager with East Anglian farming experience wanted for a farming company near Burford.

I nearly rang them up to ask them what they thought was so special about a manager having East Anglian farming experience?

Needless to say, I didn't and with that attitude didn't see any point in applying for their job either.


What I have learned is that Beccles Series clay was invented to produce wheat and has at least a 1.25t/ha ability to produce more wheat, than using identical inputs here.

 

[Two Tone]

With family back in Suffolk, I go back there quite often, coronavirus excepted.
It's an interesting trip going via Buckingham, Milton Keynes, Bedford, Cambridge, Bury St. Edmunds, Diss, Harleston and Halesworth.

On my last trip around Christmas, I noticed about halfway between Bury and Diss, crops suddenly improved, there were far more winter cereals drilled and it mostly looked good. In fact, it didn't look any different from normal years.

They get 3" less rainfall annually than I do here, but soil types are far less variable and more consistent. I'd say they are far more gutsy.

There is an area South of Bungay, West of Halesworth and East of Harleton called the Saints, where most villages are called St. something. The area actually extends nearly as far south as Framlingham and almost as far as Stowmarket. I'd say that this area is a remarkably good area to farm to consistently produces very high yielding wheats.
I think the Suffolk boys would call this 2-3 hoss (horse) land.

Another thing I have noticed over the years is that "fashions" begin earlier over there than they do here, then they realise that it didn't work and go back to what they did before. Min-til is a perfect example of this.
However, No-till seems to have caught on and continues to do so. This might be to do with Claydon being South of Bury, but is actually quite a different soil type, being Hanslope series. This would be 1- 2 hoss land.
The bit in between, around the Bury area is mostly lighter, chalkier soil types. One hoss land.

I started my life in the Isle of Ely, Cambridgeshire Black peat Fens. Ely had its own Sugar Beet Factory. One of my Grandfathers farmed right beside it. When it closed, Beet had to go to Bury. To start off with there were a few problems because they had never seen "Black" coated beet there before!

My mother and her twin sister went to school in Bury St. Ed's. One day their art teacher asked them to paint a picture of a garden. Both painted the soil black and their teacher couldn't understand why. When she asked them why, they said: "Because all soil is black."
The teacher then took them to the window and showed them some very light brown, almost white soil!