I keep entering the National Lottery every week, absolutely convinced I am going to win (and buy more land of course).

It’s probably that same mindset that keeps me planting oilseed rape.

It can be quite a gamble of a crop to grow – cabbage stem flea beetle, slugs, pigeons, adequate soil moisture – just to name a few.

See also: Oilseed rape grower uses free disease test for light leaf spot

About the author

Andrew Barr

Arable Farmer Focus writer

Andy Barr farms 700ha in a family partnership in Kent. Combinable crops amount to about 400ha and include milling wheat and malting barley in an increasingly varied rotation. He also grazes 800 Romney ewes and 40 Sussex cattle and the farm uses conservation agriculture methods.

Read more articles by Andrew Barr

There were certainly a couple of years in the oilseed rape lottery where I lost, but I think, if not actually hitting the jackpot this year, I did have a reasonable win.

Most of this year’s balls are still spinning, but I’ve already missed out on that elusive jackpot – with one of my fields having been hit way harder by cabbage stem flea beetle than the others.

Seemingly, the only point of difference is that it has made the error of being on the other side of the road.

The rapeseed was direct drilled with a Dale with tined openers, albeit about a month later than hoped, due to a complete lack of moisture.

The wheat has just been drilled direct with a Horsch Avatar with disc openers – yes, thanks to my new partnerships with other farmers I am now living that two-drill dream.

Having had a Dale drill for more than 10 years it is really interesting to see the differences between them.

I didn’t want to plant the wheat until October for precautionary grassweed reasons, but of course that can be a weather gamble.

I was prepared to change to the tine if it got wet, but in the end we had a relatively easy cereal drilling season thanks to, I suppose, the right amount of rain.

I continue to scour the “Land for sale” pages, so I am well prepared for when I do win the lottery.

It is interesting to see decent chunks of arable land in Kent that are on chalk advertised for sale now as “suitable for viticulture”, with guide prices at a resulting premium.

I am clearly going to have to switch to entering EuroMillions rather than the National Lottery.