Farm Manager  •  Weystreet Farm - David Figgis.

February 2017 - December 2020

Weystreet Farm is a family run business situated on the outskirts of faverhsam. They grow strawberries from everbearers (prize) to June bearers (Malling Centenary)  totallying 15HA producing 300-350 tonnes per season and a vast range of top fruit from pears (conference) and apples (gala, bramley, cox, granny smith, jazz, rockit and braeburn) 80Ha producing 4000-4500 bins per season. supplying M&S mainly, co-op and Lidl.

Duties & Responsibilities:  

*training new and old staff for the season as well as setting targets, goals, disciplinary and appraisals

*Tunnel coverings, on and off, plus fleece use.

*Manage and organising gangs for husbandry jobs such as leaf management, truss management and picking gangs for picking soft fruit.

*oragnising and managing gangs for thinning top fruit to the specification for our customers.

*organising and running Top Fruit picking gangs

*assist in the pest, and disease control on the soft & top fruit, liaising with the agronomist and farm owner, discussing options and implementation.

*Organise and assist with the irrigation for both soft & top fruit.  Discuss options with independent advisors for products, and rates etc.

*Manage and operate the new 3300 bin CA storage facility. Monitoring the control of CA systems and DCA systems for pro-longing storage life for the top fruit in store. *Winner of Store Operative of the Year 2018.

*Visit to third party packhouse to monitor our fruit being graded.

*Red tractor farm readiness. 

*Spraying top & soft fruit. Use of Hardi boom sprayers, and KWH 3 row sprayers.

*Fertilser spreading.

*Mowing.

*Weed killing.

General farm worker - Farm Manager  •  FW Mansfield & Son.

June 2005 - February 2017 - Farm Manager. (222 ha) 2014 - 2017.

FW Mansfields is one of the largest top/soft fruit Business in Kent with a turnover of approx £20million a year.  a very diverse Business supplying an unlimited amount of customers.

*managing a team of 10 full time staff to help with the day to day runnings of the farm by delgating jobs such as spraying etc.

*managing 150 pickers at peak season for our Apple harvest.

*keep upto date with records i.e training records and other forms of records with compliance to help the farm pass its audits.