Arable Farmer Focus FARMER FOCUSFarmer Focus: Topping legume fallow to stamp out blackgrassFor the past eight weeks I’ve been doing a rain dance every day, and it’s finally paid off. We got nearly 30mm of rain over the past week. This was… FARMER FOCUSFarmer Focus: This is the driest spring in living memoryThe drought in Norfolk continues. We’ve had 5mm of rain since my last article. It is certainly the driest spring in my memory and our poor crops reflect this. Harvest… FARMER FOCUSFarmer Focus: Preparing kit and buildings for harvestWell, haytime has passed and it will soon be harvest again, so our focus currently is mostly on preparing buildings, machinery and people for the task ahead. There’s a phrase… FARMER FOCUSFarmer Focus: Getting itchy feet about returning to workArthur is four months old now. May has nearly gone and, I must admit, I am beginning to get itchy feet regarding returning to work. I have taken a form… FARMER FOCUSFarmer Focus: Winter wheats are rapidly going backwardsThe winter wheats are starting to go backwards fast with the lack of rain. We have had 14% of our usual spring rain fall. That is 253mm less than usual,… FARMER FOCUSFarmer Focus: Frustration as weeds rise heads over cropsWe’ve started the T2 fungicides a full 10 days earlier than last year. If I’m honest, we could have started earlier, but with clean crops I wanted to wait until… FARMER FOCUSFarmer Focus: A few hours of help avoids harvest disasterThat sense of relief when the combine was finally parked into the shed was strong this season. Summer and harvest have been relentless this year. We have had 580mm of… FARMER FOCUSFarmer Focus: Will South West become new wheat basket?It is hard to sum up the past month or so. We were very fortunate in south Devon to receive a significant amount of rain over the Easter weekend, which… FARMER FOCUSFarmer Focus: Fingers crossed rain arrives next weekThe spring wheat is looking well, especially considering the lack of rainfall. It’s had 90kg/ha of nitrogen plus a dose of micronutrients, fish hydrolysate, molasses and fulvic acid, and I’m… FARMER FOCUSFarmer Focus: Rewilding, beavers and nut treesThey say: “A dry May and a dripping June makes the farmer whistle a merry tune”. There has been much merry whistling at Shimpling since all winter crops have been… FARMER FOCUSFarmer Focus: Derisking cropping for dry springsSpring is doing what is usually does these days, in delivering very little in the way of useful moisture. With only 22mm in March, 18mm in April and not a… FARMER FOCUSFarmer Focus: A pleasure to see yellow OSR fields againMy yellow block of oilseed rape is now fading, but it was a pleasure to see it again. This is helped no doubt by the low numbers of cabbage stem… More articles
