Rowan Hale
Reads harvests and drafts the packs. Grew up on a mixed farm toward Hay and still keeps a notebook of headlands that always lie.
About
We learned to read fields the slow way: tickets first, then mud on the boots.
Desktop Routebase grew out of winter conversations on mixed holdings west of Hereford, where harvest figures were kept faithfully and then rarely put next to the marks left in the soil.
Why Byford
Byford sits on the Wye with small fields, old hedges, and a habit of mixed farming. It is a useful place to practise yield reading because almost no holding here is a single crop from gate to gate. Potatoes leave traffic. Cattle use gateways that later grow wheat. Contractors combine one year and the family the next. If a method cannot survive that mess, it does not belong in our pack.
We are not merchants. We do not sell varieties, fertiliser, or iron. The point of a visit is to make last year visible enough that you can ask your agronomist a better question — or decide a field should come out of combinable crops altogether.
People who walk with you
Megan Price
Leads operations audits and winter workshops. Previously kept spray and cultivation diaries for a contractor ring in the Golden Valley.
Tomas Reed
Runs mapping sittings: opening combine files, arguing zones, and inking the version that can live above the kettle.
Aisha Rahman
Coordinates dates, travel, and the Byford table. If your contractor’s stick arrives late, she is the person who still finds a morning.
How we work
We take the records you already have. We do not scold a holding for missing a monitor file. We will say when a map is guesswork. We write in your field names. We leave when the pack is on the table, unless you book another visit.
What we will not do
We will not pretend to be your agronomist of record. We will not rank neighbouring farms. We will not turn a yield review into a shopping list. If a question belongs with a drainage contractor or a solicitor, we name that and stop.