The consensus at recent farmer meetings seems to be that 20-30% of oilseed rape has failed, with some fairing a lot worse, and only the odd, extremely talented (lucky) person being happy with their crop.

Many highlight slugs and pigeons as the main culprits or, like me, bone dry soil swiftly followed by waterlogging. Mindsets seem to have altered as “getting on quite well” now appears to mean about 80% drilled on wheat with some looking a bit ropey. There is increasing talk of fallowing the trickiest bits.

All this, and helping out the HMRC rather more than usual, is constricting cashflow in the autumn. Of course, I didn’t have any idea of the weather cards we were going to be dealt when I ordered a new tractor last June. It has now arrived and is a slightly different shade of green this time. This was instigated by the arrival, very locally, of a new Fendt depot and followed through with the hope of increased fuel efficiency, among many other factors.

Although I’m still at the “how does it move?” stage, our operator, Richard, is rapidly mastering the new setup and will gradually use its capabilities to increase our use of precision farming techniques.

More precision German engineering is arriving on farm in the form of photovoltaic solar panels for a new solar park. Unfortunately the field in question is the wettest I have ever seen it and the back roads approaching it are covered in compacted frozen snow. It seems planting panels may be as tricky as planting wheat this year. While the Germans may not think much of David Cameron’s promise of a referendum on Britain’s EU membership, my heart says “out” but possibly my budget says “in”.

Andy Barr farms 630ha on a mixed family farm in mid-Kent, including 430ha mainly of winter wheat, oilseed rape and spring barley. The rest is taken up by an OELS scheme and grazing for 500 Romney ewes and 40 Sussex cattle.

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