In recent years we have made significant investment in renewable energy and energy efficient machinery and storage facilities, resulting in cost savings whilst reducing our impact on the environment.
A similar level of investment was put in to on site onion storage, with similar benefits.
Our grain drying and storage facilities were replaced, reducing fuel use for drying by half compared to our old drier. Better storage has eliminated the need for any chemical control of grain pests. The new store was designed to maximise the area of south facing roof and has 100kwp of solar panels installed and generates more electricity than it uses. At the same time our electricity contract was renewed, and all electric used on site is now from renewable sources. Over recent years many of our older diesel engines have been replaced with new energy efficient, environmentally friendly equivalents. Our policy with irrigation pumps is now to use new engines, which may cost five times the price of used engines but are actually cheaper in the long run due to fuel savings. The environmental benefit is free. Modern tractors have lower fuel use and very low emissions compared to their predecessors, modern cultivation techniques also reduce fuel. Some of the estate properties use ground source heating which when matched with renewable electricity eliminate fossil fuel use.
The estate forms part of a broad, low-lying vale that extends from the Trent Valley to the foot of the Jurassic escarpment in Lincolnshire. The greater part of this vale has a foundation of Lower Lias beds, consisting mainly of bluish grey mudstones, and clays. To the north of Newark these beds are overlain to a large extent by fluvio-glacial sands and gravels. This covering of drift has flattened the landform, producing an almost level, triangular-shaped plain stretching northwards and eastwards into Lincolnshire. In places the underlying clays and mudstones stand proud of the mantle of fluvio-glacial drift to form low, rounded hills, rising up to 20 metres above the surrounding plain. The most prominent of these hills are associated with a narrow outcrop of rhaetic beds. These are the same beds which form the low escarpment along the western edge of the Vale of Belvoir. To the north of Newark the continuity of this feature is very fragmented, but it is still recognisable as a series of discontinuous scarps and elongated hills at Newark, Wigsley, Thorney and beyond into Lincolnshire. Reddish Mercia mudstones also outcrop in several places within the region, most notably at North and South Clifton. The Trent has cut into the soft mudstone below North Clifton, Newark and Sherwood Landscape Character Assessment East
Nottinghamshire Sandlands 2 forming a steep-sided river cliff reminiscent of those found in the Trent trench to the south of Newark. Blown sand, believed to have been accumulated by strong westerly or south-westerly winds at the end of the ice age, forms a series of deposits along the eastern edge of the Trent Valley between Collingham and Gainsborough. These deposits occur as a succession of low ridges and hillocks overlooking the River Trent. Between Besthorpe and Girton the sand assumes the form of well-developed dunes.
