The hedgecutter has been taken off the tractor at last and spring work has just about started. The first application of fertiliser has been applied to some second wheats and oilseed rape and the rest of the wheat will follow shortly when things warm up a bit more.

The 750a drill has spent a few days in the workshop having a few modifications and tweaks here and there – the biggest being an addition of a Stocks TurboJet applicator.

See also: Read more from our Arable Farmer Focus writers

This will be used either for more accurate slug pellet application, or smaller seeds in cover crop mixes that will establish better on the surface rather than being drilled deeper with larger seeds.

Last weekend I went to the Sima show in Paris – I find it’s always an interesting show as there’s such a wide range of machinery.

In one hall there’s the big kit we’re all used to seeing at machinery shows, but in the next it’s as though you’ve stepped back in time to the 1960s with all the new conventional two-furrow ploughs, 5ft disc harrows and 3t drop-side trailers.

One minute you’re attempting to talk French to find out about iPad machinery control and the next you’ve excited a small Swiss manufacturer of 4ft finger bar mowers because you’ve got lost in translation and they think you want to buy 1960 of them!

Thanks to the NAAC for organising the trip, and to Agco for sponsoring the NAAC dinner before the show.

We’ve had the final couple of visits with the NFU Cereals Development Programme over the past month, firstly with a visit to the NFU offices and EU parliament in Brussels and then to Westminster.

It was a great way to finish the programme – aspects of the way things work in Brussels, and the UK, are quite scary and it’s easy to see why things take so long.

Thank you to the NFU and Openfield for running the programme and giving us the chance to see a lot of different supply chain businesses as well as an opportunity to see where decisions affecting the industry are made – and to question a number of MPs and MEPs about those decisions.

Matt Redman

Matt Redman operates an agricultural contracting business and helps out on the family farm at Lower Gravehurst, Bedfordshire. The 210ha farm grows mainly wheat, oilseed rape and beans.