Not a huge amount happening on the farm this week. We had been perilously close to starting spring drilling a week ago, but the rain has put us back to square one. With rain forecast this weekend, the earliest we might be drilling is a week or so’s time. It is still early so no need to panic…yet.

Early fertiliser has got into the backward-looking crops and have picked up nicely. Barleys look much better than a month ago. Wheats are still suffering, especially those that established poorly in the autumn. The latest batch of rain not helping. We will go again with fertiliser as soon as conditions improve.

The outlier is Oilseed Rape which looks very good, an unusual feeling in recent times. There is very good crop cover and much lower flea beetle larvae than in recent years. However, OSR has the ability to deceive so I’m not going to declare a vintage year just yet!

With the land being too wet to work, a lot of time has been spent on estate maintenance. We have coppiced kilometres of hedges and cleaned ditches. Water management is so important to farming. Been able to deal with this wetter climate is essential and having a properly functioning ditch network is key.

We are looking forward to some drier weather and getting back on the land. Cleaning ditches is great, but we all enjoy being on the fields and progressing the workload. At this time of year, we always sit waiting for the inevitable spring rush. We don’t know quite when it will come, but it will, and we’ll be happier farmers when we’re busy in the fields!