The nice weather at the beginning of March was very welcome, and on the lighter land I enjoyed some top dressing, rolling late drilled wheat in the sunshine, and catching up with some spraying. Unfortunately, the weather then turned against us, and gave us another dose of winter.

I am pleased I chose a little-and-often approach to nitrogen on the oilseed rape, and will continue with that strategy. The biggest current challenge facing rape is pigeons, and considerable efforts are needed to try and keep on top of them.

Our other challenge is with our spring beans. They follow over wintered stubble, which is part of our stewardship agreement, and last year were drilled into a beautiful dry soil in early March. This year is very different, and we will have to be careful and opportunistic when establishing them to avoid harming the soil structure.

Despite the pressures facing the industry including poor weather and sugar beet pricing, the farming community enjoyed the local NFU dinner at Whittlesey recently. We also raised several hundred pounds for The Royal Agricultural Benevolent Institution.

The last raffle prize is a joke item, and I had the dubious honour of winning a “hand-crafted antique hat and coat rack”. The presentation involved some good-natured comments on my farming exploits as recorded in these pages. It was a great evening with entertainment from professional comedian Austin Knight and our master of ceremony for the evening Clive Abblitt.

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