Arable Farmer Focus FARMER FOCUSFarmer Focus: Growers likely to stick with beet despite issuesWe have had a very welcome 42mm of steady rain in the past 24 hours. We held off starting drilling until 1 October and have about another 30ha to complete… FARMER FOCUSFarmer Focus: Seeing snow-hit harvest on Canadian tripNever again will I complain about the weather affecting our crops, having just seen swathed oilseed rape, or canola as they prefer to call it, under snow on the prairies… FARMER FOCUSFarmer Focus: OSR crops look exceptional in the WestAs I write this, we are experiencing our first significant rain for some considerable time. It is welcome in some respects, but we still have a lot of work to… FARMER FOCUSFarmer Focus: How late dare I leave drilling?October is rattling on and conditions for drilling aren’t improving very much around here. Although we have had some rain recently and seed-beds are generally good, it is still very… FARMER FOCUSFarmer Focus: Dry spring sees great lambing and crops start wellPhil Collins’ third album, “No Jacket Required”, could well be the theme for our spring. We have put all the spring crops in and lambed the ewes pretty much without… FARMER FOCUSFarmer Focus: Early drilled OSR lost to pestsLast month I said it had been a year of firsts due to the extreme (for the UK, anyway) weather. Unfortunately, we have had another first with the loss of… FARMER FOCUSFarmer Focus: Am I crazy to buy a new drill before Brexit?After a better-than-average summer, we now seem to be paying the price here in the North West with a very disappointing September, which is usually fairly settled. We have had… FARMER FOCUSFarmer Focus: Sugar beet finally progresses in warm weatherWhat excellent conditions for planting – indeed, you could say the soil is still a little too warm for autumn cereals. Both wheat and barley have burst out of the… FARMER FOCUSFarmer Focus: Disappointingly green spring oats ends harvestYou very easily go from being weeks ahead back to where you normally would be for the time of year. In the past month we have had two first-time experiences… FARMER FOCUSFarmer Focus: Beetle-mania and contaminated trailersAs was expected, the new Agriculture Bill has proposed a hard reset for British agriculture - rebalancing the support focus away from food production and towards more abstract notions of… FARMER FOCUSFarmer Focus: Fire leaves no-till fields bare and exposedIn the eastern part of South Africa we generally get no rain in winter. This winter has been no exception, as it hasn’t rained since April. The natural grassland, or… FARMER FOCUSFarmer Focus: Will better spacing improve OSR yields?Wheat drilling is well under way here in Ryedale — but the main talking point has to be the cabbage-stem flea beetle epidemic that we have suffered for the first… More articles
