Arable Farmer Focus FARMER FOCUSFarmer Focus: Summer gloom with wet harvest and Trump tariffsBuilding on from the themes of my last column, we seem to have got to the end of summer without having a summer. Normally in a wet harvest we would… FARMER FOCUSFarmer Focus: I'm keen to cut pesticides and learning howI’m very happy with how spring drilling has gone, as I'm sure many of you are. Around the middle of March some fields were still a bit too wet, but… FARMER FOCUSFarmer Focus: A great sigh of relief as farmyard soldWhat a relief, even my eyes and cheeks feel strange as the stress and tension drains from my face. In the rat race you don’t realise how bad it is… FARMER FOCUSFarmer Focus: Landed with carbon audit from big supermarketI’ve just spent the past month starting my day at 4am. For those of you wondering: Why the early starts? I am one of these strange breeds of arable farmer… FARMER FOCUSFarmer Focus: Spring is my favourite time of yearIt’s so uplifting to be awakened by the sound of bird song this time of year. Spring is my favourite season, promising new life from the slumber of winter darkness… FARMER FOCUSFarmer Focus: Monitoring bee activity with on-farm sensorsFinally, the oilseed rape is reaching skywards so quickly I had to stop and stare to see if I could actually see it growing. This is just as well, given… FARMER FOCUSFarmer Focus: A poor crop costs as much as a good oneLate winter here was as kind as early winter was cruel. Crops on the whole look decent, but I took the decision to terminate 14ha of wheat in two fields.… FARMER FOCUSFarmer Focus: First time in a while field work is in orderWhile the dark clouds of politics still linger over our industry, the settled weather over the past six weeks has certainly bolstered morale on the farm. For the first time… FARMER FOCUSFarmer Focus: What I learned from US milling wheat growersI recently returned from Michigan where I gave a talk to US farmers about winter wheat and my Yield Enhancement Network (YEN) win of 16.5t/ha in 2023. I went through… FARMER FOCUSFarmer Focus: Busy drilling, spreading digestate and rollingWhat a fantastic three weeks of weather. It is a pity we cannot say the same about the politics of this country, or the rural economy. It is nice to… FARMER FOCUSFarmer Focus: Finally sold low-protein Wildfarmed wheat cropI feel desperately sorry for those businesses that did not manage to get into the Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI) before it shut. I have an existing SFI agreement which started… FARMER FOCUSFarmer Focus: A 1am wake-up to talk cover crops and cocktailsSpring has sprung. Although we’re probably in Fool's Spring, or is it False Spring or the Spring of Deception? We’ve sprayed off the cover (failed wheat, blackgrass, chickweed and meadow… More articles
