I run a 310ha family farm in Rutland alongside my father Christopher Renner. We have been using a John Dale Zero-Till since 2000, establishing a wide variety of crops over the years from cereals to hemp, beans to herbage-seed. The drill has evolved and been updated over the years with the addition of electronic seed metering and GPS implement steering to allow the drill to sow between the rows of the previous year’s crop residue. Moving to no-till has enabled the business to significantly lengthen the useful life of our machinery.

Our soils are predominantly limestone brash and clay-loam soils. We specialise in high-grade seed production and have also take part in field scale trials for ADAS and BASF as well as being part of a number of University lead soil science research projects.

In 2020 the farm entered into a major Mid-tier Stewardship scheme to utilise the AB15 option to bring grass into the arable rotation and drop OSR from the rotation.