Its 5.30 am in the morning and I am taking my dogs Holly and Charlie for their walk across the fields from the back of my house. 

I am feeling quite wistful this morning just realising how fortunate I am to be living in the countryside.  The sunrise is stunning, there is heavy dew on the grass, the birds are singing their hearts out but it is so peaceful.  This reminds me of Ghana the almost absolute silence and given that the outskirts of Leicester are within three fields quite amazing.

The blackthorn blossom looks like snow on the hedges and makes a striking contrast to the Oilseed rapes that just coming into flower.

We are at Growth stage 31 and should be worked up by next weekend leaving us a window to drill our Nectar & Pollen mixes, Wild bird seed strips and Campaign for the farmed Environment mixes. We are also sowing some straights; calibrating the drill with a handful of seed is a challenge.

The weekend saw just 4mm of rain which barely damped the surface and is causing us concern regarding germination particularly the tiny flower and herb seeds.

The total area will be  over 100 acres is going into our less productive areas and corners, all contributing to our Higher Level Stewardship work.  

Stoughton Estate employs Envirofield to take annual soil samples for residue N.  This was completed in the first week of February and I thought it would be fascinating to look at how much leaching may have taken place between the testing and when we actually start applying nitrogen. 

We use the results for our nutrient management plan to work out what our N maximum might be.  We have our samples taken at three depths; 0-30cm, 30-60cms and 60-90cms giving us our available N throughout those three cores. 

So what we did we took our samples from one particular field which had 18kg/ha of N available at 0-30 cm, 33.8 kg at 30-60 cm, and 26.9kg  at 60-90cms, this gave us a very high soil index of 4.  From this we could calculate our N maximum for the season and it would mean we would only be allowed to put a minimum amount of fertiliser on.

To satisfy my curiosity after 36 days I had another set of samples taken from this same field and at the same core sites.  At this stage no fertiliser had gone on in this cropping year.  The results have been quite amazing and our N index had reduced to 3.  We had had 30mm of rain through the soil and also some snow as well, we factored this in.  On our 0-30cm core we had reduced from 18kg to 15.4kg a loss of 2.6kg/ha, 30-60cm was now 31.4kg from 33.8 and the 60-90cm core had reduced from 26.9kg to 16.4kg.  An overall loss of 15.5kg per hectare.

This was a loss of .43kg of N per day over the 36 days.  Now this has a fairly major implication to our calculations enabling us to utilise our fertilizer in a better way. The later our soil samples the more accurate the record of available N.

The results are fascinating but of course two samples are not representative but we plan to follow this up with more testing going forward.

As I am recording this article there does seem to be a break in the weather, at times it feels as if we are having bigger weather cycles of wind and rain but hopefully some high pressure is coming in. 

The weather has allowed the lads on the farm to take 3 / 4 days off over the Easter but other side of the coin is the knowledge that work is piling up, I sure I am not alone with this feeling. 

Stoughton Estate measured 11mm over rain over the Easter weekend with fairly high winds so the ground is very wet and the wind is capping the soil.  Our programme of ditching means our drains are running well and we have just sent off our next water sample for nitrogen testing, I'll be interested to see the results.

It looks like the temperature might reach 12 degrees over the next few days so I am trying to get our Atlantis programme back on track.  We have only managed to get our T0 on our Oakley wheat which represents about a quarter of our acreage which is a worry.

The concertinaed Spring makes us even more grateful that we have no spring cropping this year, the thought of trying to cultivate and drill in good order and catch up, would have been a challenge.

I attended a Farmer's Weekly lunch recently, meeting up with the 2009 winners.  I felt privileged to be among such motivated and talented farmers and business people.   This has spurred me on to urge as many farmers as possible to have a look at themselves and their businesses /staff and be proud, write about what you do and send it off to Farmers Weekly Awards and let's show off our industry's best.

Well I thought Spring was just round the corner but listening to the forecast last night it looks like this is going to be held back by cold and very strong winds looking at Metcheck up to 40/50 mph and temperatures of 3 & 4 °C but feeling like -3 & -4 over the Easter period. So the Spring I thought was here last week looks like it will now be delayed, and actually we put on a couple of loads of Atlantis the other day! Soil temperatures were up to 7.5/8 °C so we are going to hang fire for now.

We are fairly well up to date with work here at Stoughton Estate.  We have put our first dose of fertiliser on the oilseed rape and we have used Sulphan at about 270kg of product that has given us the 80kg/N and 50Kg/So3. 

We have utilised our N sensor putting on our fertiliser this year but not so much with the sulphan.  We have kept that to the standard amount for the sulphur. We have given it it's head on 5 or 6 fields and to be fair it hasn't varied that much and this has given us more confidence using the N sensor on the oilseed rape. 

We have looked at our biomass maps and our recommended application rate and it hasn't varied that much so next year we will be more confident in using our N sensor on the first dose of fertiliser on the oilseed rape. 

The oilseed rape has changed colour dramatically.  From its horrible cold looking state it went through a two week period changing from blue, purple and reds leaves to lovely dark green leaves.  Pigeons are nibbling in places but they haven't been too much of a problem this year.  John's still busy putting out guns and moving bits and pieces around to push them away.  Our pigeon shooters who do an awful lot of the estate have done a very good job this year.

Moving onto our wheat we have applied our first dose of urea, solid granular urea.  We have applied about 170 kg of product giving us about 80kg/N.  This has been completed with the N sensor totally which is in excess of 800 hectares. 

We set a maximum and minimum application setting either side of the target rate and when we compared these with our planned amount it hasn't varied that much so we have been pleasantly surprised.  Our total target was 170kg / Ha and compared to what we have physically put on we were 2 tonne short over 800 Ha so it's been accurate.  I am hoping the N sensor applies the fertiliser in a more scientific way and allows better utilization of the fertiliser. 

The beans have actually started moving as well picking up their heads.  We drilled these this year where in the past they have been ploughed in, but this year we sub soiled, cultivated and then drilled our beans this time and they are looking very good.  It is so much better when you can look down the rows and are able to have better weed control.  If this goes through to yield this will be the way we plant next year's beans.

Well I thought Spring was just round the corner but listening to the forecast last night it looks like this is going to be held back by cold and very strong winds looking at Metcheck up to 40/50 mph and temperatures of 3 & 4 °C but feeling like -3 & -4 over the Easter period. So the Spring I thought was here last week looks like it will now be delayed, and actually we put on a couple of loads of Atlantis the other day! Soil temperatures were up to 7.5/8 °C so we are going to hang fire for now.

We are fairly well up to date with work here at Stoughton Estate.  We have put our first dose of fertiliser on the oilseed rape and we have used Sulphan at about 270kg of product that has given us the 80kg/N and 50Kg/So3. 

We have utilised our N sensor putting on our fertiliser this year but not so much with the sulphan.  We have kept that to the standard amount for the sulphur. We have given it it's head on 5 or 6 fields and to be fair it hasn't varied that much and this has given us more confidence using the N sensor on the oilseed rape. 

We have looked at our biomass maps and our recommended application rate and it hasn't varied that much so next year we will be more confident in using our N sensor on the first dose of fertiliser on the oilseed rape. 

The oilseed rape has changed colour dramatically.  From its horrible cold looking state it went through a two week period changing from blue, purple and reds leaves to lovely dark green leaves.  Pigeons are nibbling in places but they haven't been too much of a problem this year.  John's still busy putting out guns and moving bits and pieces around to push them away.  Our pigeon shooters who do an awful lot of the estate have done a very good job this year.

Moving onto our wheat we have applied our first dose of urea, solid granular urea.  We have applied about 170 kg of product giving us about 80kg/N.  This has been completed with the N sensor totally which is in excess of 800 hectares. 

We set a maximum and minimum application setting either side of the target rate and when we compared these with our planned amount it hasn't varied that much so we have been pleasantly surprised.  Our total target was 170kg / Ha and compared to what we have physically put on we were 2 tonne short over 800 Ha so it's been accurate.  I am hoping the N sensor applies the fertiliser in a more scientific way and allows better utilization of the fertiliser. 

The beans have actually started moving as well picking up their heads.  We drilled these this year where in the past they have been ploughed in, but this year we sub soiled, cultivated and then drilled our beans this time and they are looking very good.  It is so much better when you can look down the rows and are able to have better weed control.  If this goes through to yield this will be the way we plant next year's beans.

The beginning of March finds John Farrington, my assistant manager, and me finishing off the first round of crop walking to see what impact the autumn sprays have had on our wheat and oilseed rape crops.

Unfortunately the weather turned on us before we could complete all our autumn spraying, and we have been waiting for a break in the weather to allow us to catch up, so to be able to get out of the office and see what needs to be done makes a pleasant change.

While walking we are also completing plant/tiller counts across the five varieties of wheat we have at The Co-operative Farms' Stoughton Estate. This year, like each of the last six years, we have had Envirofield here at Stoughton carrying out soil Nitrogen core testing, and so we are starting to build up a picture of residual nitrogen left in the fields.

The weather has stopped us assessing the 20 fields we need for our nutrient management plan. In some ways it has been a blessing, as it allows us to re-test one or two of the fields and to compare results with the first tests - so we will see the impact of more than 15cm snow, and 2cm of rain, in between the two tests.  This may have an impact on the total Nitrogen that we are allowed to apply to our crops.

We have also completed tillers counts, with quite a wide variation between varieties.

A good growth regulation programme will be needed on several of our fields this year.

We have managed to complete our biomass weights on our Oilseed Rape this year, looking at our most forward to our most backward. Coming out of the winter period, it appears that pigeons have gone easy on us this year. Last year it seemed that we had the whole of the UK's pigeon population just at Stoughton!  So life has been made easier over the winter period.  Catch up with you all soon.

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