We close this regular peep at what Farmers Weekly's Barometer farmers have been getting up to this autumn with a brief report from Scotland.
John Hutcheson has been spraying his Catana, NK Bravour and Mendel oilseed rape at Leckerstone Farm, Dunfermline against light leaf spot with 0.5litres/ha of Proline (prothioconazole) and stem weevil with 50ml/ha of Hallmark (lambda-cyhalothrin).
"We left out the fungicide on the Catana because of its light leaf spot resistance, but wet weather means we're still only about half way through."
The other main tasks have been hedge-cutting and ploughing the 30ha (75 acres) of set-aside for spring cropping. But the latter hasn't been all plain sailing, again because of the conditions.
"Our Fendt 920, with its six-furrow Kverneland plough got completely sunk to the top of the rear wheel on one side," said Mr Hutcheson. "And another field was only ploughable with our old four-furrow lightweight Lemken plough, which is worth no more than £200, pulled by the smaller John Deere 6910. And we've still got about 30 acres to do.
"The experience reminds me why these fields were in set-aside in the first place.
"We're still monitoring grain temperatures in store and cooling accordingly."
Mr Hutcheson also recently attended the relatively new half-day Scottish Quality Cereals sprayer operator course with two of his operators. Introduced about a year ago it replaced the NRoSO points-based system for SQC members, he explained.
"But these courses do attract 10 NRoSO points each, so they can still be used to remain within the NRoSO scheme."
Over the Hedge will return in the spring, when there will be new Barometer farmer faces in all regions bar Northern Ireland.
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