Find out how Farmers Weekly’s barometer farmers are getting on with cultivations, drilling and other autumn fieldwork – see below for their progress, and for your feedback (in italics). Click here to find out who our barometer growers are.

16 November 2006

Clive Weir – Hillsborough, Co Down

 It rained all day yesterday. Again. That has been the story of our autumn. Up until the second week of August everything was OK, but since then we’ve had showers virtually every other day. Yesterday one and half inches was forecast, and it didn’t miss us.

It means we’re well behind on autumn establishment. Normally I would want everything in by the end of October. Now it looks like it will be December before we finish. I’ve got 80ha of first wheat left to go in.

Most of it is after potatoes – they’ve really slowed us up. The rain has made it really difficult for the growers to get them out of the ground.

I don’t think the delay will have cost us too much in yield – but we are losing bits of ground, where it has got too wet.

We’ve also had to resort back to the plough in some cases because of the wet. Min-till doesn’t work when it’s so wet. Ideally I would have done it all min-till, but it’s probably 50:50 this year.

I did manage to direct drill 40ha of first wheat after oilseed rape with our Moore Unidrill. That’s looking extremely well – I hope to do more next year.

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9 November 2006

John Hutcheson – Dunfermline, Fife

We had all our winter crops drilled by the second week in October, which is one of our earliest ever finishes.

And after a very easy harvest it’s almost as if we have had two good seasons in a row for our 2500 acres.

The cereals are all through and slugs have been no worse than usual, so we’re on course for at least some average yields.

Thanks to Gordon Balfour’s high quality ploughing, which leaves an excellent level finish, we were able to get some good seed-beds with only minimal cultivation and our 6m Vaderstad drill.

I always say that a seeder should really only be used for putting in seeds!

We’ve reduced our area of Robigus wheat in favour of more Alchemy because of the risk of yellow rust, and we’ve stuck with the six-row varieties of barley, Sequel and Amarena.

Half our oilseed rape remains Mendel because of our concerns for club-root, and I’m worried that if we don’t get a new resistant variety in the next couple of years we could be losing out.

The rest is split between Caracas, which we grew last year, and NK Bravour which is new to us.

We’re still growing Firth oats, but no longer on Quaker’s non-pgr contract – the £8/t premium just isn’t worth the risk of them going flat.

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3 November 2006

Andrew Gloag – Stokesley, N Yorks

I reckon we’re off to a pretty good start this season, considering we had 5in of rain in August and didn’t start sowing our oilseed rape until 4 September.

We had everything drilled up by the end of September and our herbicide programmes seem to be working well. The open back-end has really helped on our heavy land.

We did some subsoiling before sowing the rape as I’m pretty sure we’ve been suffering from compaction. And looking at the way the crops have come I think we probably got the cultivations about right this time.

Nigel, my agronomist, wants me to be thinking about applying Kerb herbicide soon. But with the canopies so thick and the treatment costing about £15/acre I’m wondering if I couldn’t spend that money better elsewhere.

On the wheats we’ve stuck with the varieties we had last year, with two-thirds of the first crops in Alchemy, and the rest 50:50 Robigus and Claire. The second wheats are 100% Einstein.

We’ve taken on an extra 750 acres this autumn and my main dilemma for next season is whether to change two of our John Deere 275hp 8410 tractors for a single 500hp machine and replace our two 3m Simba Solos with a 6m cultivator. We had both Sumo and Vaderstad models on test.

Changing would offer us more labour flexibility, but I need to think through all the other implications.

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20 October 2006

 

Ben Atkinson – Rippingale, Lincs

Our switch away from a plough-based system two years ago has served us well.

Winter wheat drilling’s gone well. We have about 3000 acres, mainly Richmond and Welford, with some Humber for seed.

Establishment’s been good apart from a few problems with slugs in fields drilled during a showery spell which meant we couldn’t follow with the Cambridge rolls. In my opinion rolling does more for slug control the two applications of pellets.

Pre-em herbicides seem to be doing a good job on blackgrass, and all our seed was Deter-treated, hopefully looking after BYDV.

We’ve sown only one field of winter beans – Wizard – to give us a future seed supply. There’s little margin in growing more at current prices.

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19 October 2006

John Barrett – Bungay, Suffolk

Apart from after sugar beet all our wheat is now drilled up, the main change being our switch from Nijinsky to Alchemy which now accounts for about 40% of our total 1345 acres, the rest being Robigus.

Alchemy’s another variety that a good early driller with a slightly better yield than Nijinsky.

The other big changes we’ve made are with the way we’re establishing oilseed rape and beans.

This year, instead of cultivating and then drilling the rape, we sowed it through a seeder box on top of a seven-leg Opico subsoiler. It has roughly halved our costs and we’ve had less trouble than usual from slugs even though we had 7.5in of rain in August. We’ve only had to re-drill about 60 acres out 1200 because of them.

The stand is a bit patchy in places, especially where the wheat volunteers were a bit thick behind the combine, but the plants are still all there and I expect the crop will even itself out over winter.

We’ve just started sowing our 100 acres of Wizard winter beans with a direct drill borrowed from a neighbour.

It’s a cultivator fitted with Claydon points with an air seeder on top. It got the beans in 5-6in deep and was a lot quicker than ploughing them in as we have done in the past.

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13 October 2006

Richard Solari – Shifnal, Shropshire

After 20mm of rain on Wednesday I’m very pleased that we worked late on Tuesday night to finish lifting the last of our 220 acres of potatoes.

We’ve had some Polish workers with us, through a local gangmaster, and they make a fantastic team – it’s been a pleasure having them on the farm.

Half the 80 acres of Maris Piper were sold off the field and the rest are safely in boxes in store. I’d say yield is about average.

We’re now all drilled up apart from Einstein wheat after the sugar beet.

The first wheats, Robigus and Gladiator, have already had a herbicide and aphicide, and we’ll be spraying our winter barley, half Carat and half Saffron which is new for us, on Monday.

We’re then planning to treat the oilseed rape for phoma and volunteers on Tuesday.

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4 October 2006

Troy Stuart – Clyst St Mary, Devon

About 1.5in of rain over the weekend was very welcome. It had been getting very dry and we were having a job to get pre-drilling work done.

In places the ground has been so hard we couldn’t get the plough in.

As far as drilling’s concerned we’re still about 500 acres behind where I’d like to be.

But we’ve had one chap off sick since 6 Aug, so we got behind with the cultivations; and with the dry weather it’s all had a knock-on effect.

We’ve also had more problems with machinery that I’d have hoped. Reliability is becoming a major challenge.

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29 September 2006

Richard Solari – Shifnal, Shropshire

With any luck we should be finished drilling everything we can by lunchtime today. That will just leave what’s after potatoes and beet to do.

We did the last of our barley yesterday and this is just a bit of second wheat. It’s gone well as I like to have most of it done by the end of September.

It seemed a great idea, one evening last April over a bottle of wine, to take part in a half marathon to raise money for Diabetes UK.

Now with the Great North Run on Sunday, I’m not so sure!

I have, however, quite enjoyed the early morning runs needed to achieve a respectable level of fitness, and I’ve witnessed some spectacular sunrises.

Any money raised will be used in research to better understand diabetes and to both help prevent its onset and to further improve its control if diagnosed.

Anyone wishing to make a donation can send a cheque to me, made payable to Diabetes UK, at Heath House Farm, Beckbury, near Shifnal, Shropshire TF11 9DA.

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22 September 2006

Andrew Gloag – Stokesley, N Yorks

We’re bang on target here after some fantastic weather, though it is getting a bit dry now. We’ve had no rain for 10-14 days, but the quality of seed-beds is excellent and we’ve been able roll everything.

Our 1000 acres of oilseed rape, Castille after barley and the hybrid Excalibur after wheat, is all through quite nicely, though it’s still only at the cotyledon stage.

It was all drilled from 4-12 Sept which is later than usual because of the delayed harvest – we had 600 acres after wheat. Ideally we would have sown the Castille in August.

All 1000 acres of our first wheats are done and dusted, and we’re just starting on our 400 acres of barley today.

We’re sticking with Carat which did very well for us last year. But we had a lot of six-rows last year and the quality was questionable. So I’m trying some Saffron this time, and we shall have just 60 acres of Siberia.

There will then be just the second wheats to do. Give us another good week and we should just about have the job tidied up.

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21 September 2006

Ben Atkinson – Rippingale, Lincs

Here in Lincolnshire we are desperate for rain.

The only difference between our fen soils and concrete is that things do actually grow between the gaps in concrete. Some of the oilseed rape is looking very sick.

The fens are like a desert. We have missed all the storms, seeing them go to the west along the hills (fen edge) and to the east along the coast.

The flat land seems to split storms. We have not had a significant rain for a month.

Wheat drilling is going well, but into very dry seed-beds, and we are even considering stopping until rain is forecast. We are about 60% of the way through.

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21 September 2006

Troy Stuart – Clyst St Mary, Devon

Only a third of the 500 acres of rape, which we finished drilling two weeks ago, is up and even some of the mini slug pellets that went on then are still showing.

We had a slight shower over the weekend, but we’ve had no proper rain for two to three months now. My worry is that when it starts will it know when to stop?

We started drilling wheat the day before yesterday. We don’t like to be too early, because of the disease risks in our warm climate, especially from septoria, and 20 Sept is our target.

Overall around here conditions are pretty similar, though there are odd areas where they have had a bit more rain. It’s been quite localised.

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20 September 2006

Richard Solari – Shifnal, Shropshire

Our oilseed rape is all drilled and up, and I’m still quite positive, although that feeling’s gone back a notch. OK, produce prices have gone up, but so too have our costs.

Oilseed rape is new to us and we have 270 acres split equally between NK Grace, Castille and Expert. And because it’s a first (now that we shall no longer be growing sugar beet) and I have no experience of it, we have done it all on the advice of our Agrovista agronomist, Neil Buchanan. He has determined all the things like drilling depth, rate and chemical use.

I’m amazed that it all came up, and the fascinating thing for me is seeing what a tiny plant it looks. With just four leaves it seems like a weed.

We started drilling wheat after potatoes last week, and after 25mm of rain last Thursday conditions are perfect – it was getting a bit dry. First off was Robigus, but now we’re moving into Gladiator which again is new for us.

When that’s done we shall move on to winter barley.

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14 September 2006

John Hutcheson – Dunfermline, Fife

We are well ahead with autumn drilling which I firmly believe is the foundation to good yields. The day a crop is sown largely determines how well it does.

The oilseed rape is all through and looking well.

With 650 acres sown we are half-way through our winter wheat, and we have done 180 acres of our winter barley which we’re pushing up to 400 acres this time.

The only downside is that we are having a few problems with slugs in the wheat after oilseed rape.

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14 September 2006

John Barrett – Bungay, Suffolk

We only started drilling wheat the day before yesterday. We’re replacing the Nijinsky with Alchemy as our early driller this year – purely on the basis of yield potential.

Drilling our 1200 acres of rape was fairly strung out because of the rain, and there’s been quite high pressure from slugs where we couldn’t roll. Some of the early sowings are up and away, but with the sun baking the surface some of the later ones have yet to emerge.

On the plus side the sugar beet looks well, and I’m hoping to start lifting soon off our heavy land to get some into Cantley during the first week of the campaign.

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