This will be my last article as an Arable Farmer Focus columnist, and it is great to finish on a positive note, with all the autumn crops looking so well.

I have thoroughly enjoyed my time being a contributor and have enjoyed sharing our trials and tribulations doing the job we love.

See also: Farmer Focus: Covered manure store brings new problems

About the author

Jack Hopkins

Arable Farmer Focus writer

Jack Hopkins is farm manager on a 730ha AHDB Monitor Farm in north Herefordshire on predominantly silty clay loam soils. Cropping includes wheat, barley, oilseed rape, spring oats and peas, plus grassland that supports a flock of 1,000 ewes and 25 pedigree Hereford cattle.

Read more articles by Jack Hopkins

It’s been great to give an insight into arable farming in Herefordshire, highlight how entwined it is with livestock farming and show how a mixed farming operation complements itself.

It’s also been nice to hear feedback from farmers throughout the county, commenting on how they enjoyed reading the articles and how good it was to read about topical issues relative to our part of the country.  

One of the funniest moments was bumping into a group of Yorkshire lads in an Irish airport while on a stag do.

They ran up to me holding a copy of Farmers Weekly and asked for my autograph! Great craic and a good laugh were had by all.

Back on the farm, everything has emerged well and, with the mild conditions, has continued to grow.

This year has also highlighted how much better everything establishes without large volumes of rain in a short period immediately after planting.

The autumn drilling campaign was completed on 18 October and this year it felt like a real sense of achievement and a good feeling that we had done the best job possible, massively helped out by the weather.

The oilseed rape has really filled out in the past fortnight and the thinner ones are now not so obvious.    

The field moisture deficit is slowly creeping back up but we are still 200mm of rainfall down on our average to date.

An infrastructure project, putting in a 300mm drain, has highlighted how dry it is at depth.

It does, however, still feel very mild for the time of year, which is concerning when it comes to the risk of barley yellow dwarf virus in the cereals and the thought of housing livestock.

Good luck and go well to my successor and thank you once again to everyone who has taken the time to read my articles.