Wet soils mean Clive Patrick (left) and Tony Reynolds' recent spring sowing has required drill modification.
"In common with everybody we have the coldest and wettest spring we can remember," writes Tony Reynolds from Thurlby Grange, Thurlby, Lincs.
"We started drilling spring beans - Fuego - on 9 March. We sowed some 2ha in wet conditions and then sank to our axle and spent the next hour extracting ourselves.
"We tried again on 9 April, after Clive had designed, welded and fitted modified depth controls for each of the drill openers, and struggled them in, in ground conditions as bad as we have ever attempted in the spring.
"The first drilled have emerged and are being attacked by slugs. We followed one down the centre of the bean shoot and found it in the centre of the bean itself. So we've now applied slug pellets to all the bean ground.
"Three swallows arrived on 9 April in the frost looking starved to death. They stayed two days, and whether they went north or returned south we can't tell.
"With a drier top to the soil a day later we drilled 9ha of Abacus linseed being observed for an hour by two red kites circling overhead - a first for us here.
"The cold and frost has put back T1 spraying by 10 days, we think.
"T0 is almost complete between hail showers.
"The oilseed rape has been dressed with 250kg/ha of 33.5% nitrogen and the wheats have had 100kg/ha after the first dressing of 50kg.
"We've applied Atlantis to 70ha of wheat. Starting on 3 April it took us three days working between the showers.
"Everything is bursting to grow, we just need warmth."
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