After a lot of consideration and looking around at trials and various drilling systems, I’ve gone out and bought a John Deere 750a drill.

There are several reasons behind this move. It is a more versatile drilling system, as I can drill and cultivate simultaneously without buying a second machine.

I am also able to implement an area of no tillage to understand benefits of this system and enjoy a lower running-cost system.

See also: Waging war on blackgrass

It is a win-win situation and means I will be trialling a true no-till drilling this coming autumn. This is a very exciting area to investigate and is a constant theme in all of my farming conversations.

I think, as always, it’s easier to talk the talk rather than walk the walk – first step definitely taken though. The plan is that in five years I can sell my wellies as I’ll no longer need them on our main enterprise.

Due to global volatility we’ve been very active with grain marketing this year and have approached 40-60% sold, depending on crop.

As always this is a very difficult and thankless occupation, never hitting the highs and always wondering if we’re too close to the lows.

However we’ve taken the view that we know our costs and have locked into a profit over this, so actually all the sales are good sales at the time of making them.

By the time you read this we will have had our annual Sentry conference, where Blake Vince will be of particular interest in regards to no-till farming, being a Canadian expert in the field and given my recent acquisition.

Similarly, I am looking forward to hearing from Tom Chapman, who will be covering bringing livestock back into arable rotations specifically to increase organic matter and the relationship between livestock and its place in the rotation.

Finally, in the afternoon, we hear from the man who came up with probably the most famous farm diversification in the world – founder of the Glastonbury festival, Michael Eavis.

I’m sure hearing from a man who’s looking to add Oasis and Taylor Swift to his contact list will be very interesting to talk to.

Robert Nightingale

Robert manages 600ha of combinable cropping across Sentry’s operations in Sussex and Surrey. Cropping includes winter wheat, oats, oilseed rape, linseed, peas and soon beans.