Soils, rotations and cashflows were all impacted by the 2023-24 growing season washout, meaning there are important decisions to be made ahead of the new cropping year.

The smallest wheat area since 2020, difficulties with both autumn and spring drilling, grassweed issues and high disease pressure are just some of the challenges thrown up by the very wet and mild year.

For most, the priority is to get rotations back to where they need to be, with the right sequence of crops sown at the appropriate drilling date, while carrying out any remedial work to soils before the drills appear.

See also: Advice on draining and restructuring waterlogged soils

The rain that fell for much of the 2023-24 growing season highlighted the need for field drain maintenance, says independent consultant Philip Wright of Wright Resolutions.

The rainfall also showed the difference between good and bad drainage.

“Healthy crops are grown in healthy soils,” he stresses. “With that in mind, it’s important that soil biology is aerobic and not waterlogged, or it can’t function in the way we need it to.”

A good soil has the right combination of air, water and solids, he continues.

“If all the pores are filled with water and there’s no oxygen present, as happened last autumn, it poses a threat to biology. That’s why a fast return to field capacity after a wet period helps.”

Effective drainage gets air back into the pores or spaces, and once field capacity is reached, it has the right balance of air and water, he adds.

Digging a hole in fields while there’s still a standing crop will tell you much of what’s going on and where there are problems, advises Philip.

“Plant roots will show you if there are any issues that need correcting. You want to max-out on roots, as they encourage the soil to structure.”

For those keen to use direct-drilling this autumn, his advice is to be pragmatic.

“If you’ve got good soil structure and good drainage, plus you are on top of the detail, it can work well. But you are asking a lot of the soil biology.”

Mole draining

Where mole draining is being considered, the soil must be plastic at moling depth.

Manipulating it into a “plastic worm” in your hands before rolling it into a horseshoe shape will tell you whether it’s capable of taking a mole – if it cracks, it’s getting too dry.

This is important for channel longevity, says Philip.

“You want the soil to be in a drying cycle, so spring or early summer is usually best. However, given the amount of water we’ve had this year, it might be suitable for doing now.”

Strategic soil loosening

If required, correcting compaction can be done with the help of strategic soil loosening or strip loosening, as it puts vertical cracks in the soil.

It’s rarely necessary to move the whole soil profile across a width, notes Philip, who says that the support columns of soil created between the legs can be useful to stop soils collapsing.

“Providing you take care with depth selection, you end up with soil functional zones,” he says.

“They can be a pathway to more resilient soils because the biology survives in these columns and can then go on to recolonise the loosened areas.”

Roots stabilise quickly in a zone-tillage system, and heavily trafficked areas, such as headlands, benefit the most.

“Strip loosening ahead of oilseed rape or winter beans can provide a good entry to direct-drilled winter wheat, so the benefits go beyond the current crop.”

Rotations

Having 50-60% wheat in the rotation is the aim for most arable farms this autumn, after the disruptions encountered for the past 12 months, according to agronomists. Whatever crop sequence is settled on, aim to give each crop the best opportunity, they stress.

Milling wheat is the highest gross margin crop in most situations, but the decision over whether to go for a premium-earning variety will depend on individual attitude to risk and previous success at meeting specification.

Latest figures suggest that it will cost an extra £141/ha to grow a Group 1 variety, as nitrogen prices are slightly higher than anticipated and disease risks remain a concern.

Costings show that at a yield of 8.5t/ha, a grain price of £200/t and a £40/t premium, a feed wheat variety would have to produce an additional 1.7t/ha in yield to match the milling wheat margin.

Put another way, a £20/t premium would ensure a break-even situation if the yields were similar.

While the reward is there to grow milling wheats, businesses that do so will require more cash to service the growing costs.

For that reason, it may be that Group 2 and feed wheats are more attractive for their lower cost and risk.

Costs and cashflow

Higher costs have been a feature of this year and predictions for the 2024 harvest indicate that some businesses will experience a cashflow crisis.

Gary Markham of Land Family Business says there are several factors that have contributed to this – one of which is the high tax bills resulting from 2022.

“We saw a bumper harvest in 2022, with high yields and prices, while early purchases of inputs that year kept their costs down. However, since then, input costs have shot up and have needed to be funded.

“We’re also seeing average machinery costs running at about £114/t of wheat, while establishment costs went up where areas had to be redrilled.”

He believes that arable businesses which have not established a reasonable alternative income will find it difficult to fund their way through the rest of the year.

That’s where the Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI) has a role, suggests Jonty Armitage of Strutt & Parker.

He says that arable profitability forecasts are showing the financial impact of six months of exceptionally wet weather, changes in commodity prices and falling Basic Payment Scheme income.

“For harvest 2024, the forecast net margin for an average-performing business is just £80/ha, some 60% lower than it was in 2023.

“If crop rotations and yields return to more normal levels for 2025, then the net margin is forecast to rise to £214/ha for an average performer and £449/ha for higher-performing farms, he reveals.

Given current uncertainty, the SFI can be used to take risk out of businesses, suggests Jonty.

“Using it to take out the worst-performing or lowest-margin crops, replacing them with a fixed return with very little risk attached, will make sense for some.

“Then you can focus your efforts on more profitable crops and give them the attention to detail they deserve.”

Transition Farmer: Duncan Blyth

Duncan Blyth © Phil Weedon

Transition farmer Duncan Blyth of Albanwise in Norfolk is making some rotational changes ahead of this autumn, but not all of them are due to the disruption caused by a very wet year.

Some of his planned heavy-land winter wheat and winter bean areas weren’t drilled in autumn 2023 – resulting in an increase in the farm’s spring cropping.

However, it’s the introduction of some new Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI) actions that are behind the biggest change.

OSR out, cover crop in

As a result of the latest expanded SFI 24 offer, oilseed rape, which has always followed winter barley in the rotation, is on its way out, he reports.

In its place, a four-way summer catch crop will go in behind the combine and remain in the ground until September, when an over-winter cover crop will be established.

“After that, in the spring, it will be grain maize, which is a very productive crop,” he says.

“So not only will it be better from a sustainability perspective, that sequence will give us extra income from two SFI crops as well.” Oilseed rape doesn’t stack up in comparison, stresses Duncan.

“There’s much more risk from flea beetle, slugs and grassweeds while growing rape now, and even though we’ve had some good crops, it’s testing everyone’s patience.

“Hopefully, we will go out on a high this harvest.”

Whether its omission means that slugs will be less of a problem remains to be seen, he acknowledges.

“They can really multiply in oilseed rape, so it will be interesting to see if the slug burden reduces over time.”

Summer catch crops

Summer catch crops, which will attract an SFI payment of £163/ha this year, have been grown on the farm before.

For the past three years, they’ve had a place after vining peas, which are harvested before the catch crop sowing cut-off date.

“Although they’ve been unfunded up to now, we’ll expand the area as it makes much more sense than leaving the soil bare in terms of soil structure and nutrient cycling,” he says.

“So we’re confident they work well and we can fit them in.”

The following overwinter cover crop, for which the SFI payment rate is £129/ha, can be drilled into the catch crop, if necessary, and will remain in place until February or March.

“Maize gets a bad press from time to time, but the environment will benefit from this cover crop approach.”

There are still decisions to be made about how the SFI will work more widely at Barton Bendish, he says.

Small fields of less than 4ha may be taken out of production and put into a three-year legume fallow, allowing machinery use to be rationalised.

“We’ve already committed to actions such as zero insecticide on our spring barley and maize.”

Otherwise, Duncan has had to accept a bigger spring workload this year, after the farm’s rainfall saw more than a 50% increase over the average.

Having been unable to get about 20% of the intended winter wheat drilled last autumn, he has spring barley, sugar beet and peas, all of which are looking good.

“Heavy land and spring cropping can be tricky – you have to wait for the ground to dry out before you can make a good seed-bed, but there’s always a danger it will then bake hard.”

The fact there’s been adequate moisture throughout the spring has helped, even though some crops were drilled late.

Getting behind schedule means the farm is 90ha short of its intended maize area.

Looking ahead, Duncan will start his drilling campaign in the last week of September, with winter barley. Grown for malting, he has 270ha planned for harvest 2025.

First wheats

The main focus is first wheats, which will go in from the beginning of October, with the first grassweed control Avadex being applied at drilling for grassweed control.

Extase and Dawsum are the preferred varieties, but the opportunity to try some Beowulf will also be taken.

“Before that, we’ve got some remedial work to do on our soils. An inevitable consequence of such a wet year is that there’s quite a bit of subsoiling to be done.

“Getting the basics right is so important.”

Part of that work is due to having nearly 400ha of sugar beet – three-quarters of which is Conviso Smart beet to simplify workloads – as part of the rotation.

Neonicotinoid seed treatments haven’t been used for the past two years, so their loss under a potentially different approach from a new government isn’t a huge concern.

“Without insecticide input, predator numbers have built up. We do monitor aphid numbers in the spring and thresholds haven’t been reached, so that’s reassuring.”