Well, Arthur John Barr Blackburn (my married name) was born on 30 January at 7.36am at the Borders General Hospital, Melrose.

Arriving at speed and 10 days ahead of schedule, he definitely has my gene of being early!

We are well and back home safe – Tom and I are besotted with our new arrival as parenthood kicks in.

See also: Expert tips on managing very variable crops this spring

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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I didn’t quite complete my job list before Arthur arrived. I had just started preparing fertiliser plans and clearing my desk of the vast amount of paper that seems to be associated with everything these days.

One reason why I enjoy online portals – no paper.

Dad attended the Yield Enhancement Network conference back at the end of January where we scooped up a first for achieving 82.1% of potential grain yield, estimated at 14.7t/ha, and another first for the highest yield in Scotland of 12.03t/ha.

Both of these prizes were for a wheat crop. The variety was Palladium, drilled on 8 September, which was at the start of the drilling campaign.

Crop nutrition was once again our main focus for the wheat crop. We take a “little and often” approach to this, applying it at the same time as fungicides.

We try and avoid any separate applications of nutrition to keep it in line with the farm standard.

Fields for this current season have been selected – we have included a winter barley field for the first time, allowing us to start focusing more on this particular crop. We will see how that goes.

Now we are into February, wheat has started to be collected for various contracts. We sell a significant amount of wheat at this time of year to allow agreements to be finalised.

I now seek prices from six different merchants. One thing I have learnt is the spread in prices can range from a couple of quid to up to £10/t, which shows the importance of shopping around.

With wheat prices jumping around the place at the moment, the question is where will we end up for the new crop. I have sold a small percentage already at plus £200, which seems to have settled my nerves.