Over the Farm Gate, kindly provided by John Charlesworth, Farmer Director
We finished drilling on 11th October, and all the crops have germinated and grown well, even the OSR. We have been lucky with the weather in September and October as we have had enough rain not only to get the grass growing, but also to allow us to create good seedbeds.
My son spraying the OSR crop
Getting the OSR established was tricky as we had to deal with problems such as the flea beetles which eat the stem of the newly germinated OSR plant. First, though, we spread sewage sludge across the field which provides nitrogen and phosphate; the weather helped with germination with adequate rain and warmth. The flea beetle is best controlled by spraying insecticide on the insects at night when they are active and the spray can physically contact them. My son does the spraying for us and also for a neighbour - the late nights were not popular with his wife and children!
The cereal crops are all growing fast and, due to the warm conditions, they have just been sprayed to kill off the aphids which carry a virus (called barley yellow dwarf virus) which infects the young plants and not just barley despite its name. This virus can have a devastating effect on the crop next summer.
Since the completion of drilling, we have been busy keeping the sheep well fed during tupping (5 months to lambing!). It’s important that the ewes are in good condition by tupping time as this will help to achieve a good lambing percentage (number of lambs born per ewe) next March. They will be scanned in December to see how many lambs each ewe is carrying.
Our ewes being fed in the field
We have also been changing the cattle yards from temporary grain stores back into cattle housing ready for when the cattle are brought home, which we started doing today. As usual, we have made a few modifications and improvements including new feed troughs.
We have 43 British blue cross male calves which came in early October and need twice daily milk feeding plus a lot of attention to monitor their health and treat any problems. They all come from dairy herds aged about 2 weeks and need another 6 or more weeks on milk until weaning when they will be fed a cereal based ration plus hay or silage. They will be inside until late April when they will go out to graze.
Calves bedded down for the night
