A wet February meant no fieldwork was completed, but thankfully it has not rained for five days now and the spring rush has begun.

The first job has been applying 13:0:30 NPK to all winter wheats and winter barleys at 400kg/ha. The blend is good quality and spreading evenly.

We will shortly start rolling late-November drilled wheats, which is compulsory with our high stone content. Our 20-year-old Vaderstad Rolls had a new set of rings fitted over the winter – and looks good for another 20 years.

The new grain and, hopefully, malt store is nearing completion with the new Turbodan grain dryer on its way. That’s this year’s surplus to budget money all gone, plus the next few years as well.

High grain prices have not as yet promoted an increase in ploughing up grass over here. Farmers do not have the kit required to do the job and contractors are fully booked with regulars. That said, arable farmers are becoming keener on refining their growing techniques and numbers attending various agronomy meetings bear this out. I’ll be attending another shortly to hear about new fungicide chemistry. The complementary Ulster fry-up sounds like the perfect start.

Public interest in food production has seen a massive increase and in response a local TV company is producing a warts-and-all series featuring the day-to-day workings of commercial farmers. Yours truly is one of the candidates currently being auditioned and as it’s Oscar time

Mistake of the month: While I was drilling the last 30ha field of wheat, I noticed that one field has the strange phenomenon of a tramline bisecting two tramlines. This is due to two blocked spouts on the seed drill. Hopefully, it will cover over before all the neighbours see it.

FFliveAC