The price of wheat is dropping like a stone. This certainly puts fungicide spend under scrutiny, especially when you look at the cost of purchased nitrogen compared to its current price.

The most disappointing thing this year must be blackgrass control. Driving around the countryside, it is certainly a bad year for it.

There are patches poking up through wheat crops along every road; a case of the warm and dry autumn getting its own back on us for an easy drilling campaign.

See also: The benefits of applying worm casts to soils for farmers

About the author

Matt Redman

Farmer Focus writer

Matt Redman farms 370ha just north of Cambridge and operates a contracting business specialising in spraying and direct-drilling. He also grows cereals on a small area of tenancy land and was Farm Sprayer Operator of the Year in 2014.

Contact:

Email: office@mattredmanag.co.uk

Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/@redmanmatt

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Spring crops are struggling and are nowhere near as forward as I’d like.

Late drilling in less-than-ideal conditions after a very wet March, followed by 65mm of rain a few days after drilling and then a month of dry weather, has really put them under stress.

Not to mention the cold winds and cold nights slowing them up.

Cereals has been and gone for another year, which is a worrying reminder that harvest isn’t far away, and that time is rapidly running out on the to-do list.

I’m still waiting for a grain store to be built, cutting it fine is an understatement and I am getting rather nervous. Frustratingly, it is all out of my control so all I can do is cross my fingers and nervously watch its progress.

With quite a lot of time being recently spent on stewardship AB9/A10 plots and other stewardship management there has been a lot of time to reflect on how the scheme has worked over the past five years, and what I want to change for the new scheme.

The flexibility of the schemes is still disappointing, and we all know farming by dates isn’t the best way to deliver results on the ground.

I’ve got lapwings nesting in AB9 plots, making establishing next year’s covers challenging.

I don’t want to disturb them, but if I don’t do something I risk not being able to meet my scheme requirements, and thus I’ll get penalised.

Yet if I wanted to put these areas into lapwing plots under my new scheme as they nest there every year, I can’t, because there are trees or woodland within 100m – clearly someone forgot to tell the lapwings about the rules.