We have had both extremes of weather for the past three months. We were desperately dry from mid-November, with 25-32C days and howling dry winds, making spraying difficult.

We had the centre-pivot irrigators going around like helicopter blades. We still couldn’t apply enough water to the crops, and yield potential was beginning to fall.

All that changed mid-December with the onset of what has become six weeks of wet weather, cool temperatures, cloud cover and 200mm of rain.

See also: Analysis: Is there still a place for pulses on UK arable farms?

About the author

David Clark

Farmer Focus writer

David Clark runs a 463ha fully irrigated mixed farm with his wife Jayne at Valetta, on the Canterbury Plains of New Zealand’s south island. He grows 400ha of cereals, pulses, forage and vegetable seed crops, runs 1,000 Romney breeding ewes and finishes 8,000 lambs annually.

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Crops have suffered. Clover crops were swamped with green leaf, causing seed sprouting.

What’s more, the peas have got wet feet and pollination of carrot seed crops has been very poor.

We now hope that if the pattern changes and we wait for heat on our clover we might get a late flowering.

Luckily, our carrots this year are a naturally late-flowering variety which means they might chance the best pollination weather of the summer.

We have applied an additional fungicide to most crops to keep on top of disease levels.

The boat has remained in the shed and to the disappointment of all in our house, we have not yet been water skiing, such is how useless our “summer” has been.

A very strong and rising dairy price, coupled with the extreme dry of spring has provided a much-needed lift in grain pricing and demand.

Mid-November, we still had our entire wheat crop to sell and deliver, which was concerning me greatly as we had not been prepared to sell at the low £180/t ($400/t) pricing offered during autumn/winter.

We started selling at £205/t ($455/t) delivered locally and picked several lifts, selling the bulk of the harvest at £216-£225/t ($480-$500/t) delivered or its equivalent, much to my relief, all on the back of the strength of our dairy industry.

We have now seen very strong demand for our ryegrass straw, with it now all sold to repeat farmer customers in the North Island before we have even baled the first field. So, with positivity, we begin the harvest of 2025.