Field operations audit
A reconstruction of cultivations, sprays, and traffic through a season, to see where passes stacked up and where they never happened.
How this visit runsHerefordshire · yield reading
The year is still in the tickets, the tramlines, and the wet corner nobody photographed.
Desktop Routebase sits at 92 Caxton Place in Byford and walks holdings that want last harvest explained before seed is ordered. We read agriculture yield tracking records with the people who drilled and combined, then leave paper maps on the kitchen table.
What a seasonal yield review actually is
It is not a lecture and it is not a colour printout posted without comment. We start with weighbridge tickets and variety lists, open any combine file you already have, and walk the blocks that surprised you — high or low. The pack that follows names fields in your numbering and stops short of selling a product.
Holdings around Hereford, Weobley, and the Golden Valley often mix wheat, oilseed rape, potatoes, maize, and grass. The review treats cattle traffic and contractor harvests as part of the record, not as noise.
Other visits from the same table
If the harvest file is a mess of diaries rather than weights, start with an operations audit. If you already know the year and only need it on paper, book a mapping sitting.
Harvest mapping sitting
A half-day at the kitchen table turning combine files, paper maps, and memory into a single set of field sketches you can keep.
How this visit runs
Winter planning workshop
A structured afternoon for the people who drill, spray, and harvest, using last year’s yield reading to set questions for the merchant and agronomist.
How this visit runsFrom a kitchen near Weobley
They spent longer in the wet corner of Long Meadow than on the good land, which irritated me at the time. The pack later named a blocked outlet we had stopped seeing. I still think they underplayed how well the west side yielded that year.
Who we sit with
Owner-occupiers, employed managers, and families who still argue about a field at Sunday lunch. If you keep tickets and a notebook, you already have enough to begin. We work on foot and at the table, from Byford into neighbouring counties.
Before you write
Name the harvest year, a rough acreage, and whether a contractor combined. If you have a USB stick from the cab, say so. We reply within two working days and will not invent a diary you do not have.