This is my last piece for Farmer Focus as I’ve decided to follow a different career as an agronomist with Frontier Agriculture.

I want to take on a new challenge in respect of what I’ve really learnt to enjoy as a farm manager, making the best link between cropping, soils and profitability – a challenge each and every year but a real passion of mine.

I often look back to when I was 17 and working on a small holding in Cambridgeshire mucking out pedigree goats by hand at weekends and during school holidays. I wonder what a 17-year-old me would’ve thought if I told him that in 10 years he’d be a farm manager.

See also: Read more from our arable Farmer Focus writers

I’m leaving farm management at a very challenging point. The weather seems very uninspiring and I feel for certain areas of the country where harvest has been pushed back well into September – and possibly beyond.

At the time of writing, there’s not a grain of next year’s harvest in the ground, rain is apparently just clearing and global grain stocks are weighing heavily on a strong UK currency.

It’s hard to see the positives at the moment, but I think with good advice and sound judgment there are still plenty of opportunities to be had.

Start with the positive effect this rain will have on blackgrass in the short term. Anyone with a severe problem will unlikely be drilling yet, waiting until early October to give the best stale seed-bed.

I’ve got to thank Sentry Ltd for taking me on straight out of university five years ago and putting me to the test. They’ve been fantastic at letting me grow into the role, giving me the opportunity to shine and also being there to support me when it wasn’t so rosy.

Thanks to Nathan Kilby for giving me the first chance, Andrew Mason for giving me the first shot at being a trainee manager, Oliver Howe for putting up with me as a trainee and helping me succeed, Robert Kilby for trusting me with a whole farm and John Barrett for helping me talk about it to all of you who read these pieces.

Lastly, I thank Farmers Weekly, for the opportunity to give you all an insight into the trials and tribulations of my farm management experiences.

Robert Nightingale manages 600ha of combinable cropping across Sentry’s operations in Sussex and Surrey. Cropping includes winter wheat, oats, oilseed rape, linseed, peas and soon beans