Farm diary February 10

We have been running at half power (half a megawatt/hour) which is our minimum output for around ten hours a day; even so I am told that ours is the biggest farm based output currently in the UK.

We have been running at different levels whilst the engineers commissioned the engine, and it has been interesting to see that the engine takes it all in its stride.

The cooling system in the engine runs all the time and has heating elements within it, so that the engine temperature never drops below 30 degrees when its not working, making starting up an easier proposition, with less wear and tear.

Once it has started, the engine gathers speed until it is running at 1500rpm, where by the connection to the grid is made, and once synchronization has taken place, electricity exported slowly builds up to the pre-set level.

The more gas, the more electricity exported.

Scottish and Southern electricity have been a bit dubious of our plans to produce a full megawatt/hour on the farm; imagine their shock last week when we ran at a full megawatt for 22 minutes!

They were on the phone, questioning whether we were sure that we had a licence to export such a huge amount of electricity.

After 22 minutes we had to shut down as we were out of gas, but we were all very pleased to have reached full power and all the messages of congratulations came pouring in to Chris Talbot our site manager.

Our aim now is to get the gas production up so that we can run longer then harder, but we have a dilemma.

Now that we are really feeding the plant with more silages, muck and slurry (well over 20 tonnes per day), we are losing temperature, and if you lose temperature, you lose gas.

In order to raise temperature, we need to run the engine for more hours and in order to do that we need more gas!

It is therefore a delicate balance of not feeding too much so that we do not lose too much temperature, and running the engine for as long as possible every day.

The real problem is that the external boiler supplied by the Germans is not up to the job, and cannot get enough temperature into the tower when the engine is not running.

We have never been happy with this boiler and it has made poor use of the 1000 litres a day of diesel poured into it, and now that it's too late, we find they had a bigger one.

The other problem is that now the engine is running, our problems with heating the towers are not over; as we were told they would be. We have therefore decided to feed some 'concentrate' in order to boost gas production without losing too much heat, and last week the first load of rolled barley arrived; expensive, but hopefully will do the trick.

One real advantage of this long saga is that we now know this plant far better than they do, and we have been running it for months and we can solve our own problems in the main.

The equipment is excellent, and the installation is very good, and now that we are on the way we can sort this out ourselves; we even have some spare spark plugs for the engine, which cost almost 400 each and there are twelve of them in the V12 Deutz!

The cows, who have all been watching the activity over the months as they look out of their sheds, have now got used to another new sound; that of a very powerful engine running on their poo!

It is very quiet and I can have a normal telephone conversation whilst standing right next to the engine house or the massive stainless steel exhaust.

The engine note deepens as the power output is increased, but no more noise which is quite amazing really.

n Back on the farm all the sheep have gone and the land is just beginning to dry up a tiny fraction as dry weather and longer days play their part in ushering spring along.

There are buds and catkins on the hazel, primrose leaves in the woods, and the garden is coming alive with snowdrops and daffodil leaves thrusting like swords through the soil.

All good stuff, and I can't wait for the spring to arrive and the weather warms up a bit.

Lorayne and I are off to Australia for a couple of weeks in March, which will catch the end of the summer there, and we will get some sunshine.

Elin our daughter lives in Sydney and we will spend some time with her before flying down to Victoria to catch up with Frank Tyndall, Max Jelbart and other friend's dairy farming in the area.

It is going to be a real pleasure visiting Victoria again and catching up; they have had very poor milk prices too, but the season in Gippsland at least so far has been good with not too much heat to spoil the grass growth.

n The NFU President has had to condemn the large supermarkets publicly for abusing their suppliers in the run up to having the new Code of Conduct in place.

Peter Kendall accused them of 'pre-emptive' strikes, ahead of last Thursday's introduction of the new code of practice.

Reports of some of the most extreme and unreasonable demands for retrospective payments and changes to trading terms that we have ever seen at the NFU; hugely damaging behaviour, which the new code is designed to stamp out.

Meanwhile those who are indulging in such practices are campaigning against the need for an Ombudsman, a campaign which is falling on increasingly deaf ears in Westminster as all major parties are now committed to introducing an Ombudsman.

Shadow Secretary of State, Nick Herbert was addressing a meeting in East Sussex last week, and was very firm in the need for the ombudsman in order to protect not only suppliers, but more importantly, consumers.

It is after all the consumer who would suffer from lack of choice, new products and innovation if this sort of practice is allowed to continue.