David's Digest

We haven't turned a wheel on a corn drill for ten days. I can't remember when I last saw land as wet at this time of year. And its getting close to the season when temperatures will stay low and it will take several dry days before the soil will carry a tractor. More rain is forecast tonight and tomorrow.

We've had close to 10inches since the start of August. Harvest never really got going until the first few dry days of September after which it reverted to heavy rain every second day. We're well behind with our autumn drilling and there seems little prospect of catching up in the near future. Frankly we need about a month's fine weather to allow the land to dry enough to finish drilling and start sugar beet harvesting.

I saw some beet being lifted the other day (they'd been grown by British Sugar on land they had rented for the purpose) in dreadful conditions. Presumably the factory needed beet to process and while other growers decided not to lift in the rain BS ordered their harvester to work no matter how much damage they did to soil structure. I don't know how much rent they paid the owner but I doubt if it will cover the cost of re-instating that land to a condition that will allow it to grow decent crops for a couple of years.

But back to the non event of drilling. I hear from merchants that some farmers have virtually written off prospects of getting all the wheat and winter barley planted that they had planned and have been ordering spring barley seed as fast as they could - to the point that supplies are becoming worryingly short.

We haven't panicked to that extent - yet - and hope still to get most of our planned acreage in the ground sometime soon. But prospects of growing good high yielding crops are already diappearing down the drains as we pass optimum drilling time and face having to plant into dreadful seedbeds with some of the seeds not buried because of wet conditions. As Kansas would say "Its jest one darned thing after another".    

Having spent my last few postings whingeing about the weather I feel duty bound to report limited improvement in the drilling situation. We did manage to start again a few days ago - three weeks after we were stopped by rain - and have since completed all planting on the fields currently available. That is to say all except the ones planned to be drilled after sugar beet have been lifted.

I won't claim the seeds all went in well. Seedbeds were too wet in some places and too cloddy in others. But we did manage to cover most of the seed and must now hope that wheat, which is normally resilient to poor drilling conditions, lives up to its reputation. Furthermore the damage done to land carrying sugar beet by the heavy early autumn rains was more serious that I had realised.

The first beet field lifted ploughed up very "livery" and although we normally follow right behind the plough in such situations we had to leave it to weather for a few days before the power harrow was capable of making a seedbed good enough to drill into. We have another hundred acres of beet to lift behind which we are hoping to drill wheat, so I hope they will turn out better than the first.

All in all a difficult autumn and one which does not bode too well for next years harvest yields. And it isn't over yet.

I wrote in my FW column a few weeks ago of how I was reluctantly being dragged into the cyber world of the 21st Century. I admitted that I found emails cheap, quick and useful. And I told how I use the internet for research on a regular basis. That, I thought, was enough humble pie from someone who didn't rate the rechnology a few years ago.

Imagine my consternation this morning when I went into our local villageTesco's as I was passing the door to pick up a few things for my wife. She uses the farmers market whenever possible but its only held once a month and occasionally Terry Leahy benefits.

Anyway, I collected the goods required in my wire basket and headed for the checkout. But it was closed. Instead a bank of machines had been installed labelled "self check" and I had to find out how to use the wretched thing.

I suppose it wasn't too bad. There were written instructions and when I put the goods down on the wrong side of the robot a lady inside(??) put me right. I didn't have the right change on me or a credit card so had to find a £20 note from my pocket. While I was finding it the lady became impatient and repeated her instructions. I told her not to be in such a hurry but she ignored me.

Eventually I inserted the note into the slot provided - wondering if I would see any change. But very quickly some coins rolled out into a receptical on the front of the contraption and it was my correct change. I collected it in a bit of a daze and headed home with the groceries.

I suppose I have to admit it wasn't too difficult doing the transaction and I shall be better at it next time I call. But I can't help regretting the impersonal nature of the idea. It won't be long before we don't need people at all. Its hardly surprising unemployment is rising.