Many thanks to all those who came to Chrishall Grange for Cereals 2018. We have heard a lot of positive feedback since and thankfully no negativity.

It was the first Cereals held under the new owners Comexposium. It was a different event to that we hosted previously; more compact, more informative, more technical, more vision and more focused toward the technology of the future.

Gone are the days of the large grain trading companies trying to feed the 5,000.

See also: Why growing triticale can help you earn more

I particularly enjoyed meeting several overseas visitors including groups from Japan and New Zealand as well as many regular visitors from Ireland.

Cropping plans

As harvest rapidly approaches we are busy working on our 2019 cropping plan. We have no major changes envisaged. With more than 10 different crops to harvest this year, the pressure will continue to be on combine and storage capacity.

In line with many growers in the area, there will be no move back to growing oilseed or seed turnip and forage rape crops as the flea beetle issues continue, and oilseeds no longer seem to offer the opportunities for cleaning up grassweeds they once due to herbicide resistance.

The sugar beet area will remain similar as does the areas for barley, oats, peas and mustard. The rye acreage continues to grow and for the first time in 2019 will exceed that of wheat.

In addition to rye for milling contracts, we will be growing four varieties for seed with the end produce being for AD, forage and milling markets.

Our oat acreage will be all spring sown using the variety Ellyan. We are moving away from winter oats due to blackgrass issues.

The winter barley area will be all Carat, while for the wheat acreage we will continue with soft varieties introducing Ellicit for 2019.

For the second season on the Nottinghamshire farm blackgrass has been seen, this time in a seed barley crop on one of the farm boundaries, fortunately at rogueable levels.