Rain forecast for tomorrow looks like interrupting John Barrett's autumn drilling in Suffolk. But given that he has recently taken on an extra 263ha (650 acres) under a new annual stubble-to-stubble contract run from Hill House Farm, Bungay, progress has been good and he hopes to finish by the end of the week.
"I didn't want to say anything about the new contract until it was finalised last Friday, but we've been quietly nibbling away at it since we started sowing oilseed rape."
The new arrangement brings the total farmed to about 1820ha (4500 acres), and as of today he has just 93ha (230 acres) of second wheats plus 20ha (49 acres) of first wheats after sugar beet on the new area to sow.
The extra acreage, all close at hand, will make little difference to overall equipment and labour requirements, explained Mr Barrett.
"We were already making some machinery changes, including moving from a 6m Vaderstad drill to an 8m one. And Leeroy Green who's been working for us on a part-time basis will become rather more full-time."
Herbicide treatments are well under way.
On the heaviest land, where blackgrass is the main weed target, a Trooper (flufenacet + pendimethalin) plus Treflan (trifluralin) mix has been applied.
"On the one farm with no history of blackgrass but quite a bit of meadow grass we've used DFF/IPU.
"Our biggest battle has been with slugs. We've used a lot more pellets than usual. But when you look back to the summer that's hardly surprising. When we were combining oilseed rape the header was covered in slugs."
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