16th September 2026
Talking Taties: The end for sugar beet
Knowing where to start with the positives of the 2026 summer beyond an easy harvest isn’t particularly easy; the payback time for my dryer upgrade in 2025 has certainly extended.
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Andrew Wilson
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27th August 2026
Talking Taties: Anyone sick of irrigators and irrigating yet?
Our irrigators have tested my patience this time, enough to force a rethink about how we do things here. We’ve adapted over time and will continue to do so, but growing root crops without water looks increasingly unviable, so we’ll have a review…
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27th July 2026
Talking Taties: More food for thought
It hardly seems a fortnight since spring and here we are at the cusp of harvest already, the irrigators are at full chat, the hay is made, sheds washed and kit almost ready.
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24th June 2026
Talking Taties: Selecting a winner
2026 marks 100 years of the Wilson family farming on the Castle Howard Estate, which has prompted me to have a look in our archives and draw a few comparisons.
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24th May 2026
Talking Taties: My say on safety
Now then, if you’ll indulge me, I’m going to scramble onto my soapbox and have my tuppence worth of say on farm safety. For many years I’ve been frustrated by the age old and mostly useless advice given by industry experts of…
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23rd April 2026
Talking Taties: Ploughing on
Well, I’ve done it – I’ve sold a well thought of classic tractor, on with selling another, and bought a youngster. We’ve taken 39 years and 15,000 hours out of our fleet and taken a…
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20th March 2026
Talking Taties: Managing frustrations
Frustration in farming can take many forms – weather and politics are a given on that score. As I write this, we’ve just heard the next tranche of SFI is to have lower rewards. All we can hope is…
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12th February 2026
Talking Taties: Never a dull day
A year ago I was lamenting light yields, late movement and bad weather…nowt changes! Our potato harvest for 2025 wasn’t quite as grim as it was in 2024, but storage is much more of a challenge than 12…
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12th December 2025
Talking Taties: All the fun
So where did we finish up with our taty harvest this time? 14 days, 6.5 people, 7435 litres of fuel, 3018t, 67ha lifted and very little road brushing required – it could have been worse, that’s for sure. We’re a few percent short of our contract yields, but it’s fair to say our worst…
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21st October 2025
Talking Taties: A new-to-us addition
Well, we started this month ahead of usual but things have a habit of upskittling themselves at times, and as things stand we’ve not yet started harvesting potatoes, despite half of them being ready.
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26th September 2025
Talking Taties: Gleaning the positives
The only thing worse than a poor performing year is one that follows another poor performing year. It’s safe to say arable farming and taty growing isn’t much fun at the moment.
