BARTHOLCHAPEL.COMMUNITY WEBSITE
J & WF Lind - Balgove
J & WF Lind is a family farm based in the Barthol Chapel area.
Crops grown include wheat, barley and Oil Seed Rape. Barley is grown for seed (which is sold to various merchants), animal feed and to make Whisky or Beer. Oilseed Rape is made into Vegetable Oil.
Wheat is mainly used for animal or chicken feed; however, sometimes it is used to produce fish food for Fish farms off the Scottish coast. In the North East of Scotland we don’t normally have the weather to grow wheat to a standard for making bread.
Some 500 beef cattle are bought in the spring time and finished off grass to local markets. Breeds bought in include Limousin, Simmental, Charolais, Aberdeen-Angus, Galloway, Saler and Hereford.
Sheep are used over the winter to graze the grass left by the cattle, this prevents ‘winter kill’ of the grass plants which ensures good production the next season.
A traditional herd of ‘British Friesian’ dairy cows is run at the business’s main unit of Overton of Keithfield. The milk is sold to Wisemans’ plant in Aberdeen. Some ‘Simmental-Friesian’ cross cows are milked along side the British Friesians. Cross-bred calves are sold to other farmers to foster on to beef cows.
The dairy cows at Overton are housed over the winter and fed grass silage, Turnips, draff (what's left from barley used to make whisky) and concentrates made from cereals and proteins.
High-grade seed potatoes are produced from the land in the area and sorted at the Hattonslap store. The Lind potatoes start life in a ‘test tube’ in our laboratory; then transplanted into poly-tunnels for the first year of production. This ensures that the potato plants are free from viruses and other diseases. Thereafter they are multiplied for another 3 years before being sold to other farmers.
The potatoes are then used to produce table potatoes, make crisps and chips.
Some “Bassett's” hens (all sorts!) are kept to produce free-range eggs.
