June marked the month to celebrate the 65th wedding anniversary of my grandparents, William and Marrion Hamilton.

There cannot be many married couples that have received celebratory letters from both the Queen Elizabeth II and King Charles III.

We celebrated this very special occasion with lots of family members – four generations of Hamiltons.

See also: What’s in Your Fertiliser Shed? Switch to liquid pays off

About the author

Annabel Hamilton

Annabel Hamilton farms 1,030ha of arable in the Scottish Borders with her parents. The arable area grows 65% winter and 35% spring crops. She is Basis and Facts qualified and runs a pick-your-own pumpkin patch. The farm finishes more than 300 Limousin cattle a year.  Follow Annabel on Twitter @annabelhami11

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Recently, I have been attending cereal trial sites, including three visits in the past two weeks. The furthest being 17 miles away as the crow flies.

This made for some thought-provoking decisions on varieties as disease profiles have differed at all three sites.

This autumn we will be drilling eight wheat varieties over 420ha. For those who have their jaws on the floor at that, our drill man is kept on board with pies every so often.

It’s all about the right variety, of the right crop, in the right field, in the right place in the rotation.

We are also an Agrii iFarm, where we hosted our open day on last month. At our own site, septoria has been the main disease pressure, highlighting which varieties are not coping, even with a robust fungicide programme.

Historically, Grafton has been our early driller, but not anymore due to current septoria pressure. Graham will be taking its place, making up 26% of our wheat area.

We have recently secured a distilling wheat contract with an attractive premium for meeting certain requirements.

We have grown Spotlight for a few years in our more marginal wheat fields (grade 4 land) as it outperforms any other variety. New to us is Zealum, which will be put through its paces.

Tom and I attended the Royal Highland Show in June, which as always was very sociable. Scottish Power were doing live demonstrations with a digger and a power line and going through the process of what to do as the driver if you hit a power line.

A fantastic demonstration which I hope was seen by many, and a future idea for other shows.