Desktop Routebase Byford, Herefordshire

Visit

Winter planning workshop

Winter is when a holding decides whether last year’s wet corner is a drainage job, a variety job, or simply a field that should come out of combinable crops.

Rolling farmland with hedgerows and a distant farmstead

A workshop is not a lecture. It is a timed conversation with maps on the table and a rule that each field gets named before anyone talks about a new variety. Mixed farms in the Wye valley often grow wheat, oilseed rape, potatoes, and grass in the same year; talking “about wheat” hides the potato traffic that wrecked the following cereal.

We keep the merchant and the agronomist out of the room unless you invite them. The point is for the people who live with the fields to agree what they will ask those advisers — not to replace them.

Who it is for

Families and employed teams who make cropping decisions together and want a shared reading of the year before seed is ordered.

What you leave with

A single agreed list of field questions, variety doubts, and operations to drop or keep.

Provider

Desktop Routebase facilitators from Byford.

Time and place

One afternoon, typically 13:00 to 17:00

Your farmhouse, village hall, or our room in Byford

Fee

£640 for up to six people on one holding

Travel within Herefordshire is included. Further counties are quoted before we set a date.

Included

  • Facilitation for up to six people
  • Printed maps from a prior yield review or mapping sitting if you have one with us
  • A one-page decision note posted after the session

Not included

  • Selling seed, fertiliser, or machinery
  • Acting as agronomist of record
  • Open enrolment classes for the public

How the visit proceeds

  1. We send a short agenda once we know who will be in the room.
  2. The afternoon walks field by field, not crop by crop, so mixed holdings stay honest.
  3. A one-page note follows within three working days.

Preparation

Bring last year’s tickets and anyone who will be offended if they are left out of the cropping conversation.

Limits

Workshops run November to February. We need a table that seats everyone and a wall or door for pinning maps.

Propose a date after harvest is in and before seed orders go.