After a long dry spell, half an inch of rain last Sunday was especially welcome, reports Troy Stuart from near Exeter in Devon.
"We started drilling wheat on the 19th and until we had the rain seed-beds were very difficult because they'd dried out so much.
"We made a conscious decision to start three or four days later this time."
That was to ease potential disease pressure in the mild south-west location after last season's early sowings proved very expensive to grow, explains Mr Stuart.
"We started again on Wednesday and I reckon we're about 20% done."
Alchemy and Solstice remain his early drilling variety choices with Istabraq and Einstein planned to follow the grain maize harvest.
"But that's looking to be very late. We only started on forage maize yesterday. Last year, which was almost at the other extreme, we started on 5 Sept."
Despite the dry weather, his oilseed rape has established well thanks largely to the farm's new Vaderstad Topdown cultivator, he believes.
"We followed closely with the drill which helped keep the moisture in."
Like Nigel Horne he too has suffered from outside fieldwork interference.
"We've had three lots of fly-tipping."
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