With potato harvest finished and another block of sugar beet lifted we should be drilling some more winter wheat.

However, shortly after the sugar beet team left the heavens opened and we received another 32mm of rain over the following 36 hours.

We will have to return to ploughing for the late-drilled wheat, which should go in ok when it dries up a little. The sugar beet looked to have yielded well, although it will be interesting to see the adjusted yield results when we know the sugar content after delivery.

While the rain fell I was pleased to have the opportunity to join a delegation of Cambridgeshire NFU members who travelled to London for a lunchtime meeting with the county’s MPs.

This trip was organised superbly by the East Anglian regional NFU team, and kindly sponsored by the Cambridgeshire Farmers Trust. Intensive discussions about current and future issues affecting agriculture took place over lunch in the Houses of Parliament.

Our practical angle helped to reinforce the intensive lobbying done everyday for agriculture by the small NFU London team of parliamentary advisers.

Equally, although I worry about taking the time away from the farm, I always relish the challenge and value the enjoyment I get from such events.

I have now started loading out wheat and was very pleased to find that my “slightly-over-15%” batch was actually quite dry and I suffered only minimal deductions for moisture and, happily for basic feed wheat, some useful bonus payments for quality. With some storage space now created I can finish off the last 250t that must pass through my trusty Opico/GT grain drier ready for late autumn collection.

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