The 2025 Morley Open Day this summer attracted a record number of more than 250 farmers, advisors and others. In what has been a very challenging year, there was a lot of interest in varietal performance, but also the opportunities for year-long learning from Morley’s partners and service providers.
Ringed by majestic oak trees, the central discovery and refreshment zone of the Open Day was surrounded by the fields with 44 trial plots of mainly wheat. Regular tours took groups on the plot walks to hear from the specialists on hand to describe how varieties have performed in what has been a very challenging growing season.
What we want to create is an event where people come and look at technical information and learn from talking to experts, but also to create a social event where farmers can talk to other farmers, and exhibitors can talk to other exhibitors.
Morley Farm Manager David Jones
On show at 2025 Morley Open Day
Farmer David Butler from near Newmarket was hoping for help with wheat variety choice. “I had chosen newer varieties, but they seem to have issues. I have to decide whether to carry on with them, go back to the older varieties, or just have a mix. There’s very useful information here.”
Niab Regional Agronomist for the north, a region that stretches from Stamford to the Borders, is Patrick Stephenson, who took his audiences through the wheat varieties on show.
It’s important for growers in this vicinity to appreciate that yellow rust, which has reared its head further north this year, is likely to arrive here probably next year. And therefore, start to plan in terms of variety choice, and what you think will be a treatment programme or the cost implication of that going forward. So that’s primarily what the visitors have been asking about today.
Patrick Stephenson, Niab Regional Agronomist (North)
Niab Plant Pathologist Dr Aoife O’Driscoll manned a trial to talk about cereal diseases. “It’s been a very low disease year. People are asking about non-disease aspects – stress or stressed crops, for example. And talking about their fungicide choice and fungicide spend. They are asking if they made the right decisions, and if they’ve done something a bit different, they are looking for validation sometimes as well, in that their decision making is kind of the right thing.”
Tap into chances to continue to learn
Back in the Open Day Discovery Zone, there were 13 information stands run by businesses and organisations with connections to TMAF and Morley Farms. Mga, Openfield, Niab, Boffin, Morley PhDs, PGRO, Lamport Agx of Agrovista, Anglia Water, CSF, BBRO, AHDB and JIC. Each standholder had been asked to share with visitors the opportunities to learn or expand knowledge.
For farmer Henry Stamford from Reymerston, it was his third Morley Open Day. “It’s nice to be here. I have a question for PGRO and their stand here about the future of pulse crops, which I think will be an emerging thing in the next few years. It’s good to see what other people are doing and how they’re doing it, and see how we can take that back home and try and make a difference.”
At the BBRO stand, Ches Broom was promoting BBRO’s year-round programme. “It includes the annual, in-depth event, Beet Tech, to drill training for operators, to seasonal specials like the May and August field days, which are all on offer for free, and the five-day-long Advanced Sugar Beet course. I have had a few people come up today and ask about that.”
Doing the learning on farmers’ behalf
The TMAF-supported PhD students had their own stand. Beside their posters, they shared preliminary or likely results of their research.
Napur Taylor is a PhD student at Harper Adams University, part-financed by TMAF amongst others. She was talking with passers-by about his quest to explore the potential of barley as a food crop in the UK. Were they interested? “Some have mentioned how important they think it is to discover new sources of food as the world is heavily dependent on wheat, rice and maize. It’s really nice how farmers are as interested as I am in the project. They said best wishes and hope for it to have some positive results.”
Food for thought
In the discovery zone, over delicious lunch and cold drinks, groups of farming friends and neighbours enjoyed time to talk over what they’d seen at Morley Farm Open Day 2025.
The final word goes to Morley Farm Manager and main organiser of the event David Jones as he looked out over the scene.
There are still people out on the tours, still lots of conversations – exhibitor to exhibitor and farmer to farmer – not just farmers looking at the plots. I think that’s what I wanted, and I think we’ve achieved it.
David Jones, Morley Farm Manager
