Farmer Focus: Major flood erodes soil and flattens fences
Neil MacLeod © Angus Findlay With blue sky, sunshine and hard, frosty ground providing a pleasant view through the office window, it’s hard to believe we have endured more than two months of absolute weather misery.
Not only did we experience 21 days without seeing any sunshine, but we had only five dry days from the beginning of December to the middle of February.
Relentless rainfall left heavy land sitting under water with little to no chance of crop recovery.
See also: How climate change is reshaping crop agronomy
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Winter ploughing and Sitka spruce harvesting were nonstarters and hedgecutting proved difficult.
Worse than that, the River Southesk burst its banks after 10cm of overnight rainfall upstream.
Flooding was exacerbated due to the flow restrictions created by the incoming North Sea tide.
Although the damage was not as bad as previous floods, we suffered significant soil erosion with stock fences flattened.
To put it into context, the photo of me below was taken where we rebuilt the riverbank after the 2023 floods.
The track that I am standing on has once again been washed away and a newly erected fence that sat higher was also destroyed.
This will be rebuilt again as the grass field is river gravel based and if left will keep getting eroded, putting nearby properties at risk.
On the plus side, a 4,000t earth bund built to protect our main yard and offices served its purpose, allowing floodwater to spread over more land.
Every flood event teaches us something new, and it’s important to try to manage or direct the floodwater over a wider area to reduce the force and the depth.
We also must be mindful we don’t just channel the floodwater towards our neighbours.
Perhaps I should use my platform as a columnist to voice the opinions of many that the river should be dredged as was done historically.
That, I fear, will continue to fall on deaf ears as farming is ignored in place of a perceived environmental gain.
