Farmer Focus: Drilling ends and storms begin
Keith Challen © Tim Scrivener Apparently, in the words of a famous Cambridgeshire YouTuber and farmer (James Peck), October drilling is for losers.
Well, I’m not sure if that’s true or not, but we did manage to just get everything drilled by the end of play on 30 September.
Too early, I hear some of you say. Well, you might be right, but it’s a risk I’m willing to take.
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I even took myself off on a short family holiday to make sure I didn’t start before the 15 September.
Now we’re in a direct drilling system I’m finding it quite refreshing having time on our hands in early September.
Hedges were cut, muck was spread, and winter cover crops were drilled while blackgrass germinated in quite significant numbers in stubbles ready to drill.
I’ve just had notification on my phone that storm Amy is going to hit us tonight. It’s beginning to feel like once a fortnight there’s a named storm coming through.
We are in a deficit so far on our annual rainfall to date, so 10-15mm would be welcome. However, we don’t need the 174mm Ibiza airport received in just one day.
I’m fighting the urge to moan about the state of the country – and, worse, the state of the industry.
Yet again we’ve had a change of minister at Defra. I struggle to understand how one minute you can be an expert in one subject and then be reshuffled and be an expert in another.
I’ve been growing wheat for nearly 40 years and I’m still nowhere near an expert.
I listened to the prime minister’s speech at his party conference and felt scathing that, rather than explain how he was going to turn this financial disaster round, he just proceeded to demonise his opposition.
Any fool can do that. What we really need is some true leadership; if only Maggie were still with us.
