Visited PX farms yesterday to see James Peck a UK Nuffield Scholar and young farmer of the year. James crops 4000 ac's in Cambridge as a contract farmer, which is a bit like share farming but where the land owner pays all the variable cost but then pay a machinery fee to the contract farmer.
Black grass is becoming a problem (see pic) a bit like rye grass in Australia so he was very interested in chaff carts, bailing behind the header and the seed distributor, he's also looking to introduce livestock back into the system to help with the control. He was also ploughing some pasture in preparation for a crop next march. The only thing I could see was the destruction of the soil profile. The costs associated with all the ploughing and working back is a big part of the cost structure over here, so I think if they could move to a simpler system as we have in Australia there margins would start to look allot better.