East Lothian Monitor Farm

Castleton Farm is a 169ha (418ac) farm run by Stuart McNicol and his father, Bill, who works on the farm part-time. Stuart’s wife, Jo, manages the agritourism enterprises.   

 The arable acreage produces wheat, malting spring barley, spring beans, and cover crops which are grazed by sheep. Stuart only ploughs when necessary, with most crops established with a strip-till. He uses variable rate applications at drilling and for applying fertilisers and lime.    

 Stuart has an arrangement which has 75 Hebridean sheep on the farm year-round, and another which brings in 250 Blackface sheep at certain times of the year.    

 The business has diversified into storage units for let, a wedding venue, a bakery kitchen on farm for Drift – their diversified coffeehouse – and have recently planted 2,000 fruit trees for juicing and future cidery. They have also diversified into ‘Seek’, a secure dog walking field, while ‘Escape Sauna’ has just opened at Drift, where they are also currently awaiting planning permission for a 65kW solar system.  

Stuart had a very successful harvest, with all crops yielding well. His spring barley made malting grade, but with poor prices, the area grown will be reduced in 2026. Instead, he will rent the land to a local grower for growing sprouts and cabbage.

He has been trialling cover crops for the last couple of years, but the dry summer and autumn has impacted growth this year. However, the three mixes – one farm saved and the other two being commercially available grazing mixes – are currently being grazed by Hebridean sheep.

With a brome issue, he has been doing more ploughing in addition to chemical control. This is a change to his usual min-till approach, but essential for weed control.

“I’d set out on the Monitor Farm programme to tackle net zero, but we haven’t done that – and neither has anyone else. We’ve also been trying to reduce costs, but that is hard on this size of farm.”