TeslaCoils' blog

Rape is all harvested now and in the store. A crop full of potential but sadly not to be. Over 65ha we averaged just over 4t. Not bad but not near what we are used to. Everything done by the book, although unlike some featured farmers we only used 150kgN. Perhaps our GAI calculations were wrong, or maybe the rain washed too much N away in late spring. Still, the late fungicide at pod-fill seems to have done the business with oils averaging the high 44s. No use lamenting what could have been, now we just need to sell it well. Some has been booked for £350/t and most is in the long pool. Note these selling decisions were made before we found out would could not buy N on trust and pay in January as normal. I wont be pressured to sell at todays poor price and will hold on for grim death. Target income for the crop has been revised up from £65k to £90k, so we need to average £340 a ton after bonuses. This year it has been delivered to a central store so we now know exactly what we have to sell.

Sadly, the same cannot be said for wheat. Alchemy look wonderful. From what looked thin, there are now ears full of bold grains. Same the price is going down the bog! We have 75ha, so should comfortably fill the store. Our target was £100k of income from this, and at £160 a ton this looked well on. However, fearing a repeat of last year, we did not committ anything like as much and are paying the price. Forward sold for Christmas is averaging £150 a ton but with only 550t sold, there could be another 200t to price and i imaging a lot of people are in the same boat. Merchants are reporting that their mid pools are over 80% sold. Fortunaly, the pain felt by hauliers now means we can earn a fiver a ton for hauling it ourselves - a mere 8 miles.

Beans are looking a great crop and have been well sold to a merchants pool on the basis of the entire crop from a certain area. Shockingly, our scraggly looking may-drilled beet has also perked up with the occasional downpour helping.

Little boy stood unaided for the first time today - he is 11 months old today. The time has flown by, and when he gets to a year old I think I will have aged 10.

Fingers crossed for a spell of decent weather to get the rape stubbles ripped up with the solo. On the other hand, we have no realised we may need to clean the drier out. Just in case.

Best of luck to everyone else cutting, and I hope it fills the barn.

Made some hay today. Very much fun. Not great yield but nice quality. Loads more still to do, as it was slow work with new tractor, haybob, baler to get the hang of. Dad seemed to enjoy the retro trip with the Vicon Acrobat circa 1975.

For my sins I spent the day with a pitchfork collecting the missed bits and tidying up the headland corners. Blistered all over.

I am cross. Last week I was cross. Cross enough to delete all my computer accounts at various sites. This week I am properly cross. My agronomist is paid to walk the fields often, and identify weeds when they are small so they can be delt with. Two fields that looked great and I was assured did not need any spray have erupted this week with wild oats that will have to be rogued. I am going on holiday tomorrow, and I can bet that by the time I am back the weather will have turned and the seed will be on the floor by the time it dries enough to walk the soil.

The point of a vastly reduced tillage system is not so much the reduction in fuel or time. It is the keeping of weed seeds where they will germinate easily, and their slow eradication. if I dont get these rogued, that will mess up several years of good practise. I dont like a scruffy farm, and that is what it is.

Name and address of poorly performing agronomist can be suppiled.

Grump.

Arrived at 8. In at 8:20. Machinery done by 11. Got out 5:30. back home for 6:15.

Good:

Weather was great. Saw all the usual lovelies.

Bad:

No actual new stuff. AMC/Lloyds bank spit roast lamb was rubbish - all flobery fat and no meat. Didnt see anyone at FW stand - it was deserted. General lack of bikini-clad babes.

Overall not quite the must-see event for arable farmers. LAMMA is a better day for kit. General merchant (Frontier) trials are best for varieties and crops. Lincs show better for reps/agents/lawyers. Quite a few Scots I overheard to say the same, given the distances they had travelled and said they wouldnt bother again.

I have been poorley. In bed for 5 days. Something nasty? Yes, a cold. A proper hard-core one and it totally knocked me for six. Today is the first day I have not felt awful, so I went for a drive around the farm. One look said that there would be lots of nice fresh air for me - blackgrass roguing.

Now we dont have a lot. We always think we will be spraying the whole farm, but generally the spray rep just reckons on the odd patch here or there. Well, I can tell he didnt walk too far, as there are some patches which I think will get the knapsack and roundup treatment. Fortunatly, I think three fields will escape with just a topper around the edges for tidiness. Two will need walking once or twice. One will need a good team of footsoldiers. Shame it is a 62 acre field, although the mess is concentrated in some smaller areas. How he thought one area that gets done every year could be omitted this time I dont know.

I expect we will be harvesting rape in about 11 weeks time. In the earliest field, over 50% of the petals have fallen, with only side branches still going. Caramba has worked this year, as it is about 2 and a half foot shorter than last year. Pods are all the way to the top and filling well (some already with fat white seed in) with very little early abortion from the frosts. No sign of disease and scant weeds, so job done there, apart from maybe a foliar N and Amistart spray if it looks like it may try to give up before August.

Little boy has just learnt to go forward after a week of going backward. I predict chaos. He has already rejected all his toys in favour of: mummys shoes; plastic bags; the computer; electric cables.

I use metcheck.com for my weather forecasts. It is good. Recently though, there have been a number of warnings of "convective weather". Now, in my book this has been translated to rain. We have now had two inches in 8 days and everything is wet through. I see how they get to the idea but why cant the just say "lots of rain".

I generally like euphamisms, but not when they involve weather. It has now meant two weeks of doing the awful little shed jobs that nobody likes, when we all want to pack in early and go for a brew.

A stupid is me. Am I the first with sunburn this year? Glad to see some sun, I hastliy set off with the rabbit netting that needed to go up to give the battered looking wheat some hope. Failed to heed my own advice when I told the Mrs that I would need suncream. Needless to say, I forgot, went out all day andnow have a farmers tan in lobster red.

Now fence is up (1st kilometer anyway - part 2 can wait for next year), so rabbits will be a thing of the past. I am also attaching a strand of barbed wire to deter larger animals ie the shoot. I noticed a few sprigs of blackgrass which will need roguing when they are a bit taller. And apart from the odd cleaver which can be patch sprayed after T1, the crops look nice and will probably want some attention after the weekend. 2nd load of fert on wheat, and sclerotinia spray on rape. We have also got some more land for hay this year which will need some fert and a whip over with the chain harrows and rolls at some point. 

Long may the nice weather continue. Long may any downpoars be avoided. 

T0 is on, as is the last slug of nitrogen on the rape. A good thing as flowers are opening and the tractor was already chopping a few heads off on the way through. Got 100kg or urea on the first wheat after beans which should keep them in good stead until it warms up.

It doesnt seem right that we are going from 16 degrees one day, then to biting winds, hail and sleet the next. Beetland has been moved but the drill is in the shed and it looks like it is going to stay there for a while. Its not the weather for putting up rabbit netting. It isnt the weather for sheep to be turned out, but the shed is packed with more lambs that were expected, so the first batch have gone into the newly fenced grass. At least laying the hedges means that they can be seen by people going past.

I dont really like the outside in the cold. This is proper paperwork weather. So, Monday I am starting our SFP forms, but actually looking forward to it - for the first time we are filling it in with a proper entitlement statement to work from. And no setaside to mess about with. No beans on one farm, so it will be one single crop code I think - no excuse for a late payment. Somebody mentioned that due to the stregnth of the Euro, we may pocket an extra 10% this claim year.

In the house, we have just sold the last of our junk on ebay for some cash. No telly any more, and all the other electricals are being given away. If you have things you dont want but wont make good cash, you could ocnsider  http://www.freecycle.org/ which is a way of matching local people with things they dont need any more. Saves taking them to the tip. It also appeals to my basic, grass roots, community sharing.

No winner selected for the Grand National, but I having a Chinese takeaway for tea tonight anyway. Just not as comprehensive at it could have been, alas. 

So, it looks like next Thursday is going to be the best day for work. Dry enough for the beet? I doubt it, but probably fine enough for the last solid nitrogen on the rape, some blackgrass patch spraying and the first N on the early drilled wheats. 

The reason for the consternation about it being a Thursday, is that I look after my son on Thursday and Friday. Still, there are plenty of others on the farm to do it, but it is a good way to see the farm on a sprayer or spreader. 

Internet going well, as are sheep. All animals and boy are confused with the changing of the clocks. I hate clock changing, as it usually coincides with my anual cold. Why we cant just move half an hour and stick to it for the whole year I dont know.  

Opened the sprayshed to find it full of fungicide and growth regulator. Spray rep said we would be looking at some T0 options, but it looks like my 'options' have already arrived.

Popped over to see crazy rape. We have decided to crack on with its spraying, despite a cold spell comming up, as it may be in full flower in a month or so. Better it be forward, so we can keep it greener for longer. It is getting 0.6L or caramba, some Nutriphyte, some boron (although it probably doesnt need this IMHO), and a wetter to get it in the system.

Drilled beans have swolen and split, so they will be up soon. Put some slug trials down just in case.

My brother has fenced off a hectare paddock for the sheep to be turned out on. 10 new lambs last night is putting pressure on their shed, and it has been decided to move some out into another shed that is being hastily prepared. Now we are in quite a hurry for some dry warm weather to get them out on the grass.

I signed up for broadband internet today. It has cost a lot more than the £15 a month it said. An extra £125 to reconnect my un-used phone line, and £120 for a years line rental. Then the £15 a month, which has grown to £16.50+vat. It was touted as £180 for the year looks like it will cost most like £400, but at least a lot of those are one offs, and its all tax deducatble!

Shock horror. There is nothing wrong with it. Well, it could have been bigger, but there are no glaring cock-ups. That will be in the bank on Monday, and it will make a plesant change to be able to do this years accounts with all the crop gone and the SFP in! It looks like we will show a profit (bear in mind that this is only year three of a new business), so I have turned my head towards some capital expenditure.

Top of the list is some minor drainage work around the yard, which should help the old drains cope now that we seem to be getting more intense downpoars. Second, about 750m of rabbit fencing once the gamekeeper has killed what already exists. A good 5ac of wheat has already been grazed to nothing as neighbouring landowners cant be bothered to do any control on their land. That will probably take about £5k, so I ought be able to draw a wage this year!

There seems to be a big debate in the family about income and expense. One school of thought is to maximise tax allowences, even if it means buying things we dont actually need. The other is to pay the tax and pay off some mortgage. I was hoping that another 40 years of inflation would make my debt to AMC look a lot better, but as interest on capital is my biggest expense, should I really be looking to shed some debt?

In any case, we will need some cash to pay the horrid horrid tax that goes with having half the farm in rape for this years block cropping. I suspect that, having started selling some for £350ex at harvest, there will be a bigger need for tax planning this time next year.

Still, if you're paying tax, your making money for a change so it cant be bad.

2 days of calm weather and it has all set off! 175 acres of bean pre-em sprayed. 450 acres of wheat sprayed. 400 acres wheat get their first nitrogen, and 220 acres of OSR also get some badly needed nitrogen.

Crops are all lush, tall and green. So why am I suprised? Becuase I received my Soil nitrogen results, showing there was almost none. Unless it has all got into the plant by now! I'm taling about a SMN of under 20kg, in wheat after beans, and similar in a rape crop that is almost 2 foot tall after a not-too-impressive-yielding crop of wheat.

Admitedly, I wasnt expecting much. I posted that SMN tests are a waste of time. These were done as part of what my agronomist calls "*** covering" and what I would call "due diligence".

Also slung some urea on some olf grassland to perk it up.

Thoughts now turning to OSR fungicides.....still, at least my SFP cheque arrived to pay for it all for another year.

Rain has made the start to bean drilling rather on and off. Before the weekend, we got the heaviest land out of the way. This is also made up of quite a lot of smaller fields, some of silly shapes. All this land was ploughed in autumn, and then ruffled up with my big home made cultivator.

Today has been the go of a field that we decided to not plough - infact it hasnt been ploughed for many years. The field was shallow disced straight after the combine, and weeds left to grow. Then we soloed the field as late as we dared - this was early November, which would have been unheard of in a normal year. We let this over-winter, then hit it with my big cultivator about 3 weeks ago to open it up and help with drainage. There was almost no weed growth, so we began to drill today.

There are a load of pictures in my albumn of us getting underway. here are the comments based on todays experiences:

1) Drilling was very slow as the seed we had cleaned had not been cleaned very well. We had to stop frequently to pull bits of haulm from the seed rollers. Two batches of seed were heavily contamiinated with peas, clearly from the cleaners previous customer. I picked out over a kilo from a 600kg bag of beans, which I consider a poor job.

2) Non inversion leaves a better tilth, as expected, but also is firmer. When turning a crawler on headlands with a 4m mounted cultivator drill, with a ton of seed beans in, you can sink badly on ploughed land.

The variety is Fuego. It will get a pre-em spray of Centium, pendimethlin and I think trifluralin, supbject to agronomist report. We drilled at 330kg/ha to end up with 40 plants a metre. It will also get about 175kg/ha of 0-30-20.

Anyway, there are some pics to look at in the albumn.

On other farming things, weather is too windy to put spray on the very forward rape. It also has not had any nitrogen yet, apart from 25kg/ha early February. It came ou of winter at over GAI 2, and it now well over knee high. Quite desperate for a still day as all rape, all bean land and most wheat needs the sprayer and/or spreader over it.

Non-farming, my wife has gone back to work now we have weaned Frank. he is being looked after my my mother (Monday), his other gran (Tuesday), Alison has a day off Wedbesday, and I am in charge Thursday and Friday. It gives me a 5 day week Thursday to Sunday. Anyway, skilled tractor drivers are cheaper than child minders.

I live about 15 miles away from the epicentre of thodays earthquake. At 1am, I thought a lorry was going past my house, so turned over and went back to sleep. My baby son also slept through. The mrs on the other hand almost had a heart attack, and spent the next 6 hours awake, racked with terror. Fortunatly, I rent my house, so have no concerns about it falling down, although I would prefer if I wasnt in it at the time.

Lamb births all the time. Last night was twins and the night before was quads! I approve of two out of each ewe, but four is crazy. The lady in question has had her card marked as it is not a trait we want to continue.

Land that has been waiting for spring beans has now all been over with my homemade 6m cultivator, and we begin drilling tomorrow. Variety is Fuego, and we are goign at about 330kg/ha to hopefully end up with just over 40 plants per meter square. God knows what we are going to spray them with but I can be sure that a) it wont be as good as simazine/fortrol mix, b) it wont be as cheap, c) it will have a mountain of spray can waste to dispose of. At least they dont need any nitrogen.