October has been nearly perfect for harvest. Temperatures have been well above 20C for most of the month.

It has been so dry that most of my county has now been put in the moderate drought category on the US drought monitor.

My yields have been about average, with corn running around 7.9-8.2t/ha and beans between 1.5-3t/ha.

If the weather holds, harvest should be wrapped up very soon. I’ve sold all the corn I won’t feed for about £90/t. I had some soya beans contracted for £227/t and I’ve sold most of the rest in the £200/t range.

See also: Read more from our arable Farmer Focus writers

Ten years ago these would have been good prices and equate to a profitable year. With much higher input costs, the only reason my farm will show any profit for 2015 is thanks to the cattle.

I do a lot of thinking about next year while combining. The challenge of low grain prices coupled with weeds resistant to glyphosate will be the hurdle for the 2016 crop.

Roundup (glyphosate)-ready crops kept weed control costs low for more than 10 years.

Now we are back to where we were in the early 1990s on herbicides, using tank mixes that burn the crop and seeing mediocre control unless you spray two or three times with several different products.

Another spray pass can easily add £32/ha and with our current tight budgets that can be the difference between profit and loss.

The weather is always a wild card, some forecasters predict a severe drought for our area next summer due to El Nino, while others seem to think it might be a wetter year than normal.

We do have a good start on a drought now and are coming into a time of the year where normally we do not get large amounts of moisture.

The drought of 2011-13 was actually not too bad. Because of sky-high grain prices we had a good guarantee from crop insurance and the small amount of crop we had to sell brought a good price.

With lower guarantees because of lower grain prices, this next drought might not have such a happy ending.

Next year will be the 30th year I have operated a farm on my own account. Every year has its own challenges, most beyond our control. That is the way it has always been and will always will be.

With so much information at my fingertips, what has changed is knowing that farmers all over the world are more or less in the same boat.

Brian Hind farms 1,250ha of prairie land, of which 770ha is family owned and the rest rented. Of this, 330ha is arable cropping with maize, soya, grain sorghum, alfalfa plus a mix of rye, triticale and turnips for grazing by 200 beef cattle. Grassland is used to produce hay