We have finally had some rain, but nowhere near as much as other parts of the country and nowhere near enough.

Still, things will move fast now with temperatures predicted to rise causing crops to fly through their growth stages.

For me this means keeping an eye on crops through sap testing to see what’s going on and making sure everything is balanced.

See also: Farmer Focus: Early drilled wheats have gout fly

About the author

Tim Parton

Tim Parton manages 300ha in South Staffordshire growing winter wheat, OSR, spring barley, beans, oats, lupins and wild flowers as part of a biological farming system. He grows cover crops and grass for haylage across sandy clay loam soils.

Read more articles by Tim Parton

Nitrogen is now becoming available to the plant, so I want to make sure that antagonisms from nitrogen on other elements are balanced with foliar applications.

Thus, keeping the plant’s immune system at optimum protection and avoiding any pathogens trying to gain entry to express itself and have a detrimental effect on profits (always my number one priority).

I’ve come from being a grower who was obsessed with chemicals and believing they were the only way to move forward, to now using very little as everything always has a side effect.

I can never understand why most growers are always spending so much money treating the symptom rather than looking at the cause of the problem; the same going for our own health system.

But perhaps that is where the money is? I use a range of natural biology and other amendments such as wood vinegar, which I find to be most useful when used as part of my nutritional programme in the fight against disease.

The wood vinegar I use is a regenerative product from a managed woodland, which also makes regenerative charcoal.

There is so much difference between home-produced charcoal compared with charcoal imported from overseas rainforests.

Imported charcoal often has a de-flammable product applied to it for transport and then a flammable product applied before sale to make it burn.

This application often leaves a nasty aftertaste after your barbecue that impacts the taste of your grass-fed steak.

As the old adage goes, you get what you pay for – and charcoal is no different.

Now where is the barbecue and my sun hat?