We have finished harvest and are now drilling grass seed and cover crops into what is an unsurprisingly moist seed-bed.

Harvest was relatively painless despite the rain, and our old combine performed well, with very few breakdowns other than the broken knife that was wholly my error when getting a bit keen with some flat crops.

Quality held up in the wheat. We grew Palladium for the first time this year. It performed well, with most making some level of milling.

About the author

Charlie Cheyney

Arable Farmer Focus writer Charlie Cheyney farms more than 480ha land in Hampshire in partnership with his father. They run a mixed arable and 450-cow dairy enterprise, growing cereal and forage crops on varying soils, from chalk to heavy clay.

Read more articles by Charlie Cheyney

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Our policy has been to grow Group 2 varieties without applying extra nitrogen for milling to reduce our risk and hope that we make quality.

This policy is helped by the fact that some wheat is always needed on the farm for feed, as caustic-treated wheat makes up a proportion of the dairy cows’ diet.

Although the combine behaved this year, other machines have not been so reliable, and we have had what seemed like an unending list of breakdowns and some expensive repair bills to match.

I am yet to find the answer to how we run machinery on the farm cost-effectively. The only solution I can come up with is to have as little kit as possible.

New machines depreciate quickly, and the old high-hour machine always runs the risk of a breakdown.

A big challenge for the coming year is to consolidate our kit. We have become an enterprise that requires a lot of machinery.

Better record-keeping has enabled us to look more closely at individual machinery costs to make more informed decisions.

Embarrassingly, I also think my machinery maintenance could be improved.

Catching issues sooner and carrying out more servicing and repairs in-house is an easy way to save the high hourly cost of a mechanic.

The first crop of next season is starting to appear. Oilseed rape is now emerging after what has been a very quick establishment.

Hopefully, this speed will continue, allowing it to grow away from flea beetle attacks. However, it feels like a gamble.