In my last article I talked about needing to make changes on the back of a challenging harvest, which we’ve done. Pretty much all of these changes have been based around observation and focusing on the detail. 

Firstly, everybody involved in field work, arable or livestock, has been bought a shiny new wooden handled stainless steel fork with their name on it.

See also: How SFI grassy corners and blocks can work most effectively

About the author

John Pawsey

Arable Farmer Focus writer John Pawsey is an organic farmer at Shimpling Park in Suffolk. He started converting the 650ha of arable cropping in 1999, and also contract farms an additional 915ha organically, growing wheat, barley, oats, beans and spelt.

Read more articles by John Pawsey

Any time spent off the tractor inspecting an implement should be complimented by an equal amount of time digging in the soil to confirm that the job you thought you were doing was actually the job you were doing.

© John Pawsey

For example, are you cultivating below the stolons of creeping thistle to weaken them or through the stolons, chopping them up and making the problem worse? 

Secondly, we have a long list to get through at our Monday morning farm team meeting, from accidents and near misses, new job risk assessments and lone working to weekly work expectations and who needs what time off.

But now we have a new agenda item. We go around the room and everyone has to report on one new thing they noticed last week.

When I first suggested it there was some eye rolling, but it’s now our favourite bit.

It extends the meeting by 10 minutes, but we are getting some real gems – everyone’s learning. I will pick out some of the best ones for you in a future article.

Like many of you, we have had a very wet September which has meant drilling has been delayed until October.

I am sure this will be a blessing in disguise in terms of organic weed control.

We’ve had some decent flushes. At the time of writing, we are two days into autumn sowing.

Talking of flushes, our new weather station’s app is telling me that drilling conditions are optimal, which is a brilliant start to harvest 2025.

It has saved me the trouble of lowering my bare bottom into the soil to do the same job. Modern technology, eh?