I am happy. The farm looks pretty good considering the rain. We went drilling early this year again and it has paid off, I think. All the pressure from every angle is to delay, delay, delay. I can safely say that the one year we tried to delay and got caught out (2019) cost us more money than 10 years of some scruffy non yield robbing weeds. It also made for an extremely tense few months between me and my father. (He would go drilling in august if he had his way!). Although this wasn’t just blind luck or a complete gamble on my part. We have spent a couple of years playing around with a small inter row hoe, this goes in-between the roe of crops and mechanically, and rather crudely takes the weeds out. It has worked well however the output was too small. We took delivery of a 12-meter wide, camera guided, all singing and dancing Horsch hoe in September. Knowing we have this machine in our weed control arsenal gave me the confidence to happily pull the trigger on planting two weeks earlier than most, in the knowledge I could salvage a weed disaster if it happened. I think it has paid for itself many times over before it’s even been used! However due to the wet weather the pre-emergence herbicides have worked very well and there is little black grass so far. However, in places the herbicides have worked too well and damaged the crops, this becomes more evident as the planting date gets closer to that apocalyptic rain in October. I am putting a positive spin on this, but it isn’t all perfect. Winter oats look poor and 20-30 acres that need re drilling with spring oats. There is also about 40-50 acres of wheat that will also need re drilling with most probably oats or barley. This is mostly due to sheer amount of water and where I have not kept a close enough eye on slugs.